海上风电能推动英国发展到2030年吗?

The UK Prime Minister has set a vision to generate enough electricity from offshore wind to power every home in the UK by 2030. Wood’s renewables experts look at the cross-sector learnings and the development life cycle for these projects to ask what needs to change if the UK is going to hit the target.

本周鲍里斯·约翰逊, 英国首相, 阐述了他对后新冠肺炎和后脱欧英国的愿景. It included an aspiration that the UK should be to offshore wind power what Saudi Arabia is to oil.

但有一个明显的例外:沙特出口其大部分自然资源, within a decade Boris wants UK wind to generate enough electricity to power every home in the country.

The comparison between offshore wind and oil and gas is more than just levels of ambition  

沙特阿拉伯和石油天然气几乎是同义词, due to the abundance of natural hydrocarbon resource and economic strength that they have built from it. 通过比较，总理显然为他的野心设定了一个基准. However, 除了野心的规模, there are other parallels between offshore wind and oil and gas that will help to deliver the PM’s goal.

你可能会觉得英国风很充足, however, 为了达到这个目标, offshore wind will have to venture into more challenging locations that are further from shore, 在更深的水和更强大的风和波浪条件下. For decades the oil and gas industry has been propelled by its drive and ingenuity to operate safely in exactly these conditions, and this expertise can be combined with that from the offshore wind sector to create a winning package which benefits the UK.

作为世界海上风电的领导者, 英国已经在推动固定涡轮机的创新, 漂浮风中的新兴技术, 以及配套的基础设施, 输配电网络和涡轮机制造需求. Early efforts have helped reduce offshore wind costs and accelerated innovation will be needed to meet the target, 更快地降低成本，并在英国创造更多就业机会.

在漂浮的风中, many of the competencies are a stronger match for the existing oil and gas supply chain than the existing wind supply chain. Coupled with the decline in oil demand due to the pandemic and the resultant volatility in commodity markets we are seeing resources, 专业技能和技术专长变得可用.

随着电网负荷越来越大, another market which will become increasingly important for offshore wind power is the production of hydrogen through wind powered electrolysis. 还有海上风力发电, a British green hydrogen sector could be a major contributor to the economy and to our net-zero targets.

It is not just oil and gas know-how that presents an opportunity for offshore wind. Offshore oil and gas production assets are also being repurposed and modified to facilitate green energy as it moves into these remoter locations.

因此，这是一个跨部门学习方法的完美时机, benefits, leverages oil and gas experience and smooths the transition to a cleaner global energy model. Companies which already operate in multiple sectors will be particularly important in supporting this transition and bringing diverse expertise.

海上风电场址和规划周期需要承诺加速开发

Yet, the optimism and opportunism need to be balanced with some pragmatism and recognition of the mountain to climb. 沙特阿拉伯发展了庞大而先进的石油和天然气工业, 成为…中的一员, 如果不是世界上最大的生产国，并在此基础上推动其经济发展, 在半个多世纪的时间里.鲍里斯·约翰逊(Boris Johnson)给了英国10年的时间发展海上风电……

Any detected skepticism is not about naysaying; we welcome the ambition and undoubtable benefits success would bring. 但我们需要看到2020年海上风电发展的现实, and we at Wood are very familiar in this space from our work over the last couple of decades.

海上风电的生命周期从选址开始, current bidding rounds present welcome opportunity as long as they maintain momentum. 一旦确定并保护了站点, progressing to submission of a development consent application is at best around two and a half years, including the required two years of offshore bird surveys for the environmental impact assessment.

一次提交, developers need to factor in around 18 months for determination of the application (depending on the consenting regime) before being awarded a development consent. We are currently working on a high-profile UK offshore wind farm and whilst its bird surveys started in summer 2019, submission of the consent application is planned for the second half of 2021 to hopefully gain consent early 2023.

能源并不是海上风电对英国的唯一贡献, 就业和GDP需要得到支持

回到沙特阿拉伯的话题上来, various government schemes there have focused in recent years on capturing the value of oil and gas in the local economy, 创造新的就业机会, 支持本地制造业, 本地化技能和技术，增加出口.

在过去十年中, there’s been significant renewable energy development in the UK but much of the investment has gone overseas. High-value components including turbines and foundations are being imported from mainland Europe and Asia-Pacific.

New opportunities created by the government’s ambition and investment need to drive in-country benefit and capture economic value locally to be truly sustainable.

The scale of the challenge makes it imperative that the timeline on the current seabed lease rounds are met, 新的网站出现了. We will also need to see a significant acceleration in the consenting and development timeline for these projects. 解决这个问题的机会可能在于向石油和天然气市场学习.

作为能源专家, we are thrilled to hear of the UK government’s great ambition for offshore wind - we are ready to partner to achieve a more sustainable future.