Onshore wind is at the heart of UK government plans to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, but ageing assets present a challenge for expanding capacity. Last week a new player, Threesixty Renewables entered the UK renewables market.
Image Credit: Threesixty Renewables
Threesixty Renewables has been formed through the joint venture of ENERGYPRO, (established leaders in the Irish analysis and asset management sector) and Adamas Wind (who since 1988 have pioneered the UK’s onshore and offshore windfarm industry). This joint venture is anticipated to set new benchmarks in the level of service UK renewable asset owners will receive in the future.
The UK government's Net Zero Strategy, which outlines the role of onshore wind in achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 under the directives of the UK Climate Change Committee's Sixth Carbon Budget might seem ambitious, but with players like Threesixty Renewables entering the space, who offer their clients an improved level of efficiency that stretches well beyond the wind turbine the ambitions targets seem attainable.
Meeting targets will involve both a doubling of historic onshore wind installation rates and, crucially, the repowering of approximately 8 GW of existing onshore wind capacity over the next 20 years. At the launch, it became clear that the new business has the ambition and calibre to shake up the asset management space and deliver for their clients the government determined objectives.
The new players robust business model focuses on maximising runtime and operational capability for their clients with the overarching goal of delivering greater levels of efficiency and asset life extension for their partners.
Fieldfisher, the law firm who orchestrated the joint venture hosted the official launch along with RenewableUK, the trade association for the wind, wave and tidal power industries in the UK.
At the launch Hugo Lidbetter, corporate partner at Fieldfisher; Ronan O'Meara, managing director of Threesixty Renewables and ENERGYPRO; and Dan McGrail, CEO of RenewableUK discussed amongst other topics why repowering is essential to meet UK generation targets, practical tips for adapting repowering, the interplay between repowering, recommissioning and life extension as well as the commercial incentives of adapting a repowering model within the context of achieving net zero.
Speaking at the event, Dan McGrail, CEO of RenewableUK said: “Repowering is a huge opportunity for the UK to boost renewable energy capacity and meet our net zero target even faster. Some of the oldest onshore wind farms are reaching the end of their natural lifespan after generating for a quarter of a century or more. More than 8GW of onshore wind will need to be repowered over the next couple of decades, which represents a huge opportunity to grow our onshore capacity across the UK. And we know that repowering is popular with the public, our most recent polling shows that with over two-thirds of people support replacing old onshore wind farms with the most efficient modern turbines”.
Also speaking at the launch Ronan O’Meara managing director of Threesixty Renewables and ENERGYPRO said: “We’re delighted to be partnering with Adamas Wind to form Threesixty Renewables. The Adamas team have decades of experience in owning, operating and maintaining windfarms across the UK. We feel that this experience and local knowledge, combined with our own analytical tools and asset management experience, will deliver increased revenue for windfarm owners across the UK and will help quickly bridge the gap between the current status quo and achieving zero net targets by 2050”.
Hugo Lidbetter, corporate partner at Fieldfisher, added: "Much is made of the ambitious capacity requirements of a net zero energy mix, what is less widely acknowledged is that all our existing generating capacity will also need to be replaced before 2050. Repowering existing projects presents a very significant commercial opportunity for developers, investors and supply chains, but it is important that the ambitious commitments are matched by meaningful policy developments to remove some of the road blocks".
Download a copy of Repowering: The future of wind farms.