The UK’s energy market regulator Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem) has shortlists six bidders for the development of transmission links for three offshore wind farms off the coasts of Norfolk and Sussex.
The three offshore wind farms include the 402MW Dudgeon, 400MW Rampion and 573MW Race Bank.
The firms competing for the Dudgeon and Rampion transmission projects include Balfour Beatty Investments, Equitix, Diamond Transmission Partners, Mari Energy Transmission and Transmission Capital Partners.
For the Race Bank transmission project, Balfour Beatty Investments, Equitix, Diamond Transmission Partners, Transmission Capital Partners and Triton Transmission are competing.
Ofgem said that the three links are the first of to be tendered under a fifth round of the Offshore Transmission Owner (OFTO) regime.
With an estimated value of £2bn, the fifth round will connect 2.3GW of generation capacity.
The bidders will now undergo the final invitation to tender (ITT) stage. Ofgem will then announce the preferred bidder details of the each project at the completion of each ITT evaluation stage.
Each of the OFTO will receive a guaranteed revenue stream for 20 years under the terms of their license.
Construction work on the Rampion and Dudgeon wind farms is due to be completed in 2018 and later this year respectively. The Race Bank wind project is scheduled to be completed in 2018.
Diamond Transmission Partners is a consortium of Mitsubishi and HICL while Mari Energy Transmission is a consortium of Macquarie Capital Group and Frontier Power.
Transmission Capital Partners is joint venture of International Public Partnerships and Transmission Capital Partners Limited Partnership, whereas Triton Transmission is owned by Dalmore Capital and DIF Infra 4 UK.