Companies join up for offshore wind

Reuters
Published: March 3, 2009

LONDON: E.ON UK , Dong Energy and Fred Olsen Renewables have set up a joint venture to participate in the third round of bids for offshore wind farms, E.ON said on Tuesday.
"Round 3 represents a challenge to both developers and the wider industry. Nothing on this scale has been done before," said Niels Bergh-Hansen, Executive VP of DONG Energy.
The Crown Estate, an independent body which owns all the seabed within 12 nautical miles of coast, said last month it was awarding exclusivity agreements to companies and consortia to develop wind warms on 10 sites.
The sites could have capacity of more than six gigawatts of offshore wind, contributing to the bid to generate 15 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020.
Fred Olsen is owned by Bohnheur ASA and Ganger Rolf ASA in Norway. Dong Energy is headquartered in Denmark.

E.ON said the consortium members had been involved in over 60 percent of the existing operational offshore wind farms around the world and were building five offshore wind farms with a capacity of 800 MW.
(Reporting by Nao Nakanishi)