Joint statement from North Falls, Five Estuaries and National Grid: Commitment to exploring coordinated network designs in East Anglia
Published 7 July 2022
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Onshore and offshore energy infrastructure are critical to delivering on the ambition for the UK to be Net Zero by 2050. As responsible developers, owners and operators of renewable generation and transmission infrastructure, we strongly support the government’s ambition to make the UK the world leader in offshore wind. Delivering government ambitions of 50GW of offshore wind by 2030 will create green skilled jobs, strengthen UK security of supply, provide clean renewable power to fight climate change and help to reduce energy bills for British consumers.
National Grid Electricity Transmission (Sea Link), National Grid Ventures (Nautilus and EuroLink), North Falls (offshore wind farm) and Five Estuaries (offshore wind farm) are working together and exploring the potential for offshore coordination as part of the Offshore Transmission Network Review (OTNR) “Early Opportunities” workstream, with a view to identifying a future Pathfinder Project.
Offshore coordination of these projects could reduce, but not avoid, the need for coastal onshore infrastructure in east Suffolk and southern East Anglia and significant reinforcement of onshore infrastructure, such as the East Anglia Green project, is key to enabling a clean low carbon future irrespective of where energy comes ashore.
Whilst we welcome the progress the OTNR has made and recent publications from BEIS and the energy regulator, Ofgem, on enabling regulatory and policy changes, currently, the detailed commercial, regulatory and legislative frameworks needed to realise offshore coordination are not yet fully in place. We are working with the Government and Ofgem as they continue to progress the changes needed to enable greater coordination between these projects. So as not to impact the Government’s 2030 offshore wind ambition, we continue to progress, in parallel, consent for grid infrastructure projects based on the existing regime.
North Falls
Five Estuaries
National Grid
