Ofgem shortlists 5 Bidders for Burbo Bank 2 OFTO project

Ofgem has announced a shortlist of five bidders competing to own and run the £230 million (US$230 million) transmission link to the Burbo Bank Extension offshore windfarm (BBW02), situated in the Bay of Liverpool (UK).

The shortlist shows there is strong competition to own the link and the bidders will go through to the final stage of the tender where Ofgem will appoint the Offshore Transmission Owner (OFTO) for this project. The OFTO will receive a guaranteed revenue stream for 20 years under the terms of their licence, subject to availability of the assets.

The following bidders have been shortlisted:

• Balfour Beatty Equitix Consortium (a consortium comprising Balfour Beatty Investments Ltd and Equitix Ltd)
• Dalmore Capital Limited (acting in its capacity as manager of the PPP Equity PIP LP)
• Diamond Transmission Partners (consortium comprising Mitsubishi Corporation and HICL Infrastructure Company Ltd)
• Mari Energy Transmission (consortium comprising Macquarie Corporate Holdings Pty Ltd and Frontier Power Ltd)
• Transmission Capital Partners (consortium comprising International Public Partnerships Ltd and Transmission Capital Partners Ltd Partnership, a joint venture formed between Amber Infrastructure Limited and Transmission Investment LLP)

Ofgem expects to announce details of the preferred bidder for the Burbo Bank Extension project in April 2017.

The BBW02 will be situated in the Bay of Liverpool approximately 20 kilometres off the coast of Liverpool, and will be located entirely within UK territorial waters. National Grid Electricity Transmission PLC (NGET) is the onshore transmission licensee, and the BBW02's transmission assets will connect to the Bodelwyddan, 400 kilo volt substation, North Wales.

The transmission assets will include an onshore substation, an OSS one subsea cable and one land cable, and an OFTO dedicated Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system.

The Burbo Bank Extension project is being tendered under the fourth round of the OFTO regime. Since the regime was set up in 2009 it has attracted nearly £3 billion (US$4 billion) investment and led to significant savings in the costs of delivering offshore wind.