The U.K Green Investment Bank (GIB), Britain’s government-funded bank investing in green energy projects, has acquired stakes in two offshore wind farms owned by Denmark’s Dong Energy and Germany’s RWE Innogy respectively for nearly 500 million pounds ($830 million), Reuters reported.
GIB, working with 3.8 billion-pound in capital provided by the government, has purchased a 50 percent stake jointly with Japan’s Marubeni in DONG Energy’s planned Westermost Rough offshore wind farm off the east coast of England, the report said.
Together the partners acquired the stake for 500 million pounds, of which the GIB is providing 241 million, The GIB said in a statement.
The bank is making an additional 10 percent stake purchase in RWE Innogy’s Gwynt y Mor project, the largest offshore wind farm under construction in Europe, for 220 million pounds. The GIB said DONG Energy and RWE’s proceeds from the sales would be re-invested in Britain’s renewable energy market.
This investment by The GIB comes as a relief to Britain’s offshore wind sector that has seen a series of project cancellations over the past months. Last week British utility SSE announced it was shelving two planned offshore wind projects and reducing its stake in a third to cut costs.
Despite these, Britain continues its lead as the world’s largest offshore wind market.
U.K wind energy market grew by 38 percent in 2013, says DECC
Wind power in the U.K contributed about 7.7 percent of the U.K’s electricity in 2013, up from 5.5 percent in 2012, a 38 percent increase year over year, according to the latest report from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC).
Wind turbine installations in Britain could reach 3,000 by the end of the decade, compared with 1,075 turbines now. Some 2.5 GW of offshore wind capacity has gone through planning and could be added to the grid in coming years, Reuters report said.
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