Published at 10:30, Wednesday, 18 July 2012

A MULTI-MILLION pound deal to transfer ownership of a 42km cable, linking an offshore windfarm to the National Grid, is now complete.

Vattenfall last week closed the deal on the transfer of transmission assets for the Ormonde Offshore Wind Farm,10km off Barrow, to Transmission Capital Partners.

The £103.9m deal transfers the 42km export cable and substations from the wind farm, under a process known as offshore transmission owner, following assessment by regulator Ofgem.

The export cable, made of copper and heavily armoured with steel wires and polyethylene to protect the copper, weighs 3,500 tons – equivalent to eight fully loaded jumbo jets.

The protected copper will transmit electricity from the 30-turbine wind farm to the mainland to meet the equivalent electricity demand of more than 100,000 homes annually.

Transmission Capital Partners, funded by International Public Partnerships, will now own and operate the subsea export cable taking power from the 150 megawatt wind farm and feed it into the National Grid.

TCP will also own and operate the wind farm's onshore and offshore substations.

The licence granted to TCP by Ofgem allows it to operate the transmission cable and the substations for 20 years.

The Ormonde OFTO transfer is Vattenfall’s first in the UK. The transfer of transmission assets at its Thanet Offshore Wind Farm is expected to follow later this year.

Peter Wesslau said: “This OFTO transaction is Vattenfall’s first to be completed in the UK and we are pleased to have reached financial close with TCP.

“Ormonde Offshore Wind Farm is a cutting edge scheme which provides a glimpse into the future of offshore wind.

“Vattenfall completed the installation of the export cable in April last year and we believe that we were the first in the UK to simultaneously lay and bury a cable of that length and size in one uninterrupted operation.”

This is the fifth offshore transmission project that has closed under Ofgem's initial round of nine tenders.

The Ormonde windfarm is expected to produce around 500 gigawatt hours of electricity every year.

First power was exported to the National Grid on August 18, 2011, and all turbines were ready to produce at full power from February 22 this year.

Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk