Charles Wood & Jennifer Pattison gear up for Tender Round 3
A rising demand for electricity, closure of coal and oil fired power stations and a reduction in fossil fuel reserves are contributing to a worldwide energy gap. The need to provide a reliable and consistent source of electricity, reduction of carbon and a competitive market has resulted in many countries, including the UK, adopting an approach which requires generation of electricity from renewable sources.
The UK government, under the EU Renewable Energy Directive 2009, set ambitious climate change targets of 15% of total energy consumption from renewable sources (2009 Renewable Energy Directive (2009/28/EC)) and a 34% reduction of carbon emission by 2020 (Climate Change Act 2008/UK 4th Carbon Budget). The government set out its strategy for achieving such targets in its Renewables Roadmap, including the objective to install 18GW (recently revised to 8-16 GW) of offshore wind capacity by 2020.
Although the UK has made good progress and now generates more power from offshore wind than the rest of Europe combined, offshore wind capacity needs to increase in order to achieve
