Page 11 - AsiaElec Week 22

AsiaElec RENEWABLES AsiaElec
MHI Vestas to supply turbines to SSE Energy’s Seagreen wind farms
JAPAN
VESTAS Wind Systems, which owns MHI Ves- tas Offshore Wind in a 50:50 joint venture with Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, said on June 1 that MHI Vestas had signed a conditional agreement for the Seagreen offshore project in the UK.
Vestas Wind Systems said that the project would be delivered by MHI Vestas if the agree- ment translates into a firm order, and that it would not be included in Vestas Wind Systems’ order book.
The project is still subject to a final investment decision (FID) by its developer, SSE Energy, and involves up to 1.5GW of offshore capacity in two phases.
The first 1,075MW phase involves two wind farms, known as Seagreen Alpha and Seagreen Bravo.
The first phase is located 27 km from the coastline of eastern Scotland, and was awarded exclusive development rights by The Crown Estate for the Firth of Forth Zone of the UK’s Round 3 offshore wind farm development
programme.
SSE Energy gained offshore consent for Sea-
green Alpha and Seagreen Bravo in October 2014 from the Scottish government, while the local authority, Angus Council, has given plan- ning permission in principle for the onshore ele- ments of the project.
In September 2019, Seagreen secured a 15-year contract for difference (CfD) from the UK government for 454MW, representing 42% of the total planned 1,075MW capacity at Sea- green Alpha and Seagreen Bravo.
SSE Energy said that it planned to install 114 turbines, each with up to 10MW of capacity, and that project costs could total $5.7bn.
The project aims to produce enough power for 1mn local homes.
MHI Vestas is now the world’s second-larg- est offshore turbine supplier, with 15.7% of the market, according to figures in the Global Wind Energy Council’s recent Supply Side Analysis 2019 report.™
POLICY
EGAT puts together delay plan for SPPs
State-run Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat) plans to discuss the possibility of delaying the commercial operation dates (COD) of small power producer (SPP) plants.
The SPPs currently under development by private firms in Thailand have a total capacity of 8,765 megawatts and the firms have already signed power purchase agreements with the state grid.
SPP licence holders can sell up to 90MW to the state grid, while selling the rest to companies operating in industrial estates.
Patana Sangsriroujana, deputy governor for strategy at Egat, said tentative discussions have already happened and a final proposal will be submitted to the Energy Regulatory Commission.
The government wants to delay the SPPs as the plants generally have a greater production cost, especially those fuelled by biomass.
NEWS IN BRIEF
Energy demand is expected to be lower this year, and power with the highest costs must be cut first.
He said policymakers are concerned about the impact the delays could have on licence holders and will likely include remedies for the latter.
Mr Patana said the proposal will not affect large power plants or independent power producers because the generation costs of SPPs average 2.5-3 baht per kilowatt-hour (unit), while independent
power producers average 2 baht per unit.
POLICY
China strengthens 2020 green energy targets
China boosted its clean energy targets for 2020 and said it would for the first time formally monitor whether provinces meet their goals or not, Bloomberg reported.
Nationwide, the country is targeting
28.2% of electricity generation to come from renewable sources, up 0.3 percentage points from last year, the National Development
and Reform Commission said in a statement. Non-hydro sources are expected to provide 10.8%, up 0.7 percentage points from last year.
The NDRC also gave individual targets for each province and region, excluding Tibet, which already gets a majority of its power from renewable sources. Grid operators, power generation firms and users will be held accountable for meeting the targets and could be punished with bad credibility records if they don’t.
The announcement came after China last week said it had space in its power grids to absorb 52% more wind and solar capacity this year than it added in 2019. The higher targets and increased capacity imply that renewable installations will increase this year, Morgan Stanley analysts including Simon Lee said in a June 1 note.
Week 22 03•June•2020
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