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East
Anglia ONE, the offshore wind project
owned by Vattenfall and ScottishPower Renewables, has successfully secured
a Contract for Difference (CfD) in the competitive auction process run
by the UK Government.
At the same time, Vattenfall is preparing to sell its 50% share in East
Anglia ONE to ScottishPower Renewables.
Both partners will continue to develop the rest of the East Anglia Development
Zone with the potential for a further 6GW of capacity.
-This is welcome news for East
Anglia ONE. It has taken five
years to reach this point since The Crown Estate awarded the lease to Vattenfall
and SPR and almost nine months since being awarded development consent.
Now SPR will take on sole responsibility for delivering East
Anglia ONE as we complete the
purchase of Vattenfall's 50% share in the project, says Gunnar Groebler,
Head of BU Renewables at Vattenfall.
Vattenfall is committed to growing its wind business across the European
markets it operates in. The divestment of our 50% shareholding in East
Anglia ONE to SPR means that Vattenfall
can prioritise investment in the UK and the rest of our European wind portfolio.
- We still see a promising future for the rest of the East Anglia Development
Zone – and UK offshore wind generally - and we will continue to work with
ScottishPower Renewables to deliver the remaining five projects, says Gunnar
Groebler.
However this is just another chapter in the firms current
"Sell off" and particularly its divestment of its Renewables
portfolio.
Recent months have also seen its selling off its 85.5 per
cent majority share of the waste incineration plant "Müllverwertung
Borsigstraße GmbH" in Hamburg to the city's waste handling company.
The sales prices amounts to approximately EUR 67 million (approximately
SEK 600 million). Other items include its German facility services
operations to ISS Facility Services GmbH, its CHP-plant Fyn Power Station
in Denmark to Fjernvarme Fyn, 74.9% majority stake of the electricity grid
company “Stromnetz Hamburg GmbH” to the City of Hamburg, its German engineering
consultancy Vattenfall Europe Power Consultant GmbH (VPC) to palero capital
GmbH (Palero), and its thermal assets in Utrecht to Dutch energy firm Eneco.
Last year saw Vattenfall
experience difficult market conditions with weak demand, a surplus of generation
capacity and historically low electricity prices.
In October they announced it was carrying
out "a number of additional efficiency-improvement and cost-cutting
measures", and is continuing to divest assets that do not belong to
the Group's core businesses or are judged to be unable to meet the company's
return requirements. The cost-cutting programme for 2015 is being expanded,
and the investment programme is being reviewed.
The CEO Magnus Hall commented "Vattenfall
will continue to prioritise investments in renewable electricity generation,
however. Vattenfall's thousandth wind turbine was installed this summer.
During the quarter a decision was made to build the Sandbank offshore wind
farm in Germany and another two land-based wind farms in Sweden.
– It is with a great sense of commitment that I have undertaken to lead
Vattenfall as its new President and CEO, and to be able to tackle the challenges
we see, a review of Vattenfall's vision and strategic direction has been
initiated"
