UK-based Moray Offshore Windfarm (East) announced that it has reached financial close – a major milestone marking the commencement of GBP 2.6 bln of project finance investment.
The consortiumwhich develops and operates offshore wind farms, known as ‘Moray East’, is a a 950MW offshore wind farm in the Outer Moray Firth, 40km from the North East Coast of Scotland. The consortium is currently owned by EDPR (43.3%), Diamond Green Limited, which is partly owned by DGE (33.4%) and ENGIE (23.3%).
At a briefing in the House of Commons, Moray East Board Directors Dan Finch and Matteo Maino briefed the Rt Hon Claire Perry MP, Minister for Energy & Clean Growth about the project.
They said the project will beliver 950MW new renewable generation capacity and will be capable of meeting the average needs of ca. 950 000 UK households. It also cut the cost of offshore generation from £140/MWhr for windfarms being built today to only £57.50 – a reduction of almost two thirds.
Moray East Board Director Dan Finch said: “Moray East marks a major milestone in the progress of the offshore wind industry. Not only will it deliver plentiful, sustainable, renewable power, it will do so at a highly competitive price – to the economic advantage of both the household and the country."
He added: “Last month we announced The Port of Cromarty Firth will be used as the project’s intermediate port during construction, and in the long term, we announced in summer that Fraserburgh will be the operations and maintenance base for the lifetime of the windfarm."
“Throughout the development process we have worked with local and national stakeholders to enable advantage to be taken of the new opportunities brought by offshore wind. We are grateful to all those who have engaged with us to take the project to this point and look forward to continuing to work with them through the construction, delivery and operation which will enable those opportunities to be realised," Dan concluded.