Written by David McPhee
Offshore wind farm decommissioning could top £3 billion, according to a UK
Government report released last night.
The Cost Estimation and Liabilities in Decommissioning Offshore Wind
Installations report, published by the Department of Business, Energy and
Industrial Strategy (BEIS) concluded that the cost of of offshore wind
decommissioning could be between £1.28bn and £3.64bn.
The report, which included a number of Scottish wind developments, forecast
that the actual cost would be around £1.82bn.
It concluded that “highly volatile” vessel rates, coupled with a lack of
knowledge given no large scale decommissioning projects have taken place,
could both affect the future cost.
The report said: “The total decommissioning liability in real (2017) terms,
based on the base line assumptions in the cost model, is forecast to be
£1.82bn. However, applying a range of uncertainty commensurate with a class
4/5 estimate a range of £1.28bn to £3.64bn is anticipated.”
There was also uncertainty around the timing of offshore wind
decommissioning due to the fact that it is “likely that improved late life
management and repowering could extend the operational life of many
offshore wind farms” but that “uncertainty can be managed through regular
review of proposed offshore wind farm decommissioning dates”.
The report took a number of UK wind developments into account, including
Beatrice Offshore Wind Farm, Robin Rigg and the Beatrice Demonstrator project.
1 Comment
Ian Miller · July 17, 2018 at 5:52 pm
No doubt the ‘new poll’ was taken out by Scottish Nazi Party interrogators offering subsidies to positive respondents and other means of persuasion to negative respondents.
How does this square with a recent poll which also came out saying that 85% consider wind farms to be a blot on our countryside ?