German offshore surges to 2.78GW as industry seeks reassurance, By Bernd Radowitz Recharge News in Berlin July 20 2015

The DanTysk project in the German North Sea was one of the projects to swell the country's capacity

Paul Langrock/Vattenfall

Germany’s offshore wind sector grid-connected more turbines in the first half of 2015 than in its entire history so far – but the industry has warned the government over lack of clarity on upcoming tenders and the rate of future network expansion.

A combined 1.77GW of capacity was grid-connected from January to June, pushing Germany's accumulated online offshore capacity to 2.78GW, able to supply roughly three million German households with electricity, Deutsche WindGuard said.

The research company calculated the figures on behalf of national wind federation BWE, VDMA Power Systems, the energy arm of German engineering federation VDMA, and three offshore wind groups.

Another 90 turbines, or 380.7MW of capacity, are fully in place and waiting for a grid-connection, while foundations for a further 84 turbines have been installed.

The industry expects a total of around 2.25GW to be feeding into the grid for the first time this year off Germany's North and Baltic Sea coasts, likely bringing the total grid-connected capacity to 3.3GW by year-end.

That would already be half of Germany's 6.5GW offshore wind target for 2020.

"The expansion continues with additional projects: nine projects comprising turbines with a total capacity of 704.4MW are under construction. The final investment decisions are on the table for five more projects with 1,482.8MW," said Jörg Buddenberg, chair of the working group for Offshore Wind Energy AGOW.

Adding wind parks already in construction and those with a final investment decision to the already-installed capacity, the industry reaches 82% of the government's 6.5GW target.

With 2.48GW, most of the grid-connected capacity is in the North Sea, while 310MW is in the Baltic Sea, where German coastal waters are much more limited.

Jörg Kuhbier, chairman of the Offshore Wind Energy Foundation, cautioned that a continuous grid growth is needed for the future expansion of offshore generation, saying that the latest draft of Germany's Offshore Grid Development Plan (O-NEP) doesn't foresee sufficient new grid capacity.

"The smaller the number of grid connection systems with available capacity, the more limited is the competition between the projects within the scope of future calls for tender," Kuhbier said.

"The reduction of electricity generation costs that is meant to be achieved through competition would be made unnecessarily difficult if the grid ends up as a bottleneck again."

The industry also wants the government in Berlin to announce the rules for future offshore wind tenders soon to be able to plan accordingly. As Recharge first reported earlier this year, Germany plans offshore wind tenders to start as soon as late next year.

"The offshore wind industry will already need clarification of the tendering design in 2016 so that expansion can be continually moved forward," says Norbert Giese, chair of the VDMA steering committee for the offshore wind industry and chair of wind energy agency WAB. Giese is also vice president for offshore at Germany-based turbine manufacturer Senvion.

"To avoid a stop-and-go situation in the market, it is also imperative to create clear rules for the transition from fixed-rate remuneration to a competitive tendering process for every model. We will keep value creation and employment in Germany, and expand through additional exports," Giese added.

Europe moves slowly but surely towards offshore supergrid By Darius Snieckus Recharge News in London,Monday, July 20 2015

A North Sea supergrid is seen as the spearhead of a pan-European network that would underpin greater co-operation to integrate renewables

Tennet

Europe is leading the world in developing its vast offshore wind resource, but building the transmission network to bring power to shore is proving a slow-rolling process, with EU's 28 leaders only signing up earlier this year to a package of policies that include taking "urgent measures" to reach a minimum interconnection target of 10% of total generation capacity by the end of the decade and 15% by 2030.

Construction of a North Sea supergrid — seen as the spearhead of a pan-European network that would underpin a flexible energy market and greater regional co-operation to integrate renewables — could at last be gathering pace, now that the main contracts for the biggest of several planned "ring main" offshore interconnectors have been handed out.

Last week, contracts totalling €1.5bn ($1.65bn) were awarded for the 1.4GW North Sea Network (NSN) trunkline between Norway and the UK. Cable suppliers Prysmian and Nexans will provide the high-voltage DC (HVDC) link, with the $450m order for the converter stations at either end of the line going to power technology group ABB.

Prysmian will handle the 950km of line for the North Sea sections of the route, with cables fabricated at its Arco Felice factory in Naples, Italy, and installation carried out by the cable-laying vessel Giulio Verne. Nexans is supplying the fjord, tunnel and lake sections of the NSN, made up of 500km of HVDC cables manufactured at its Halden, Norway, plant, which will be laid by its Skagerrak vessel. ABB will deliver converter stations using its HVDC Light technology.

NSN, slated to be in operation by 2021, will form a key link in a newbuild offshore transmission infrastructure that will include the recently approved 1.4GW NordLink line between Norway and Germany; as well as the Viking Line between Denmark and the UK; and the Nemo Link between Britain and Belgium, both of which are at an advanced planning stage.

Tied together with existing interconnectors such as the 1GW BritNed line linking the UK and the Netherlands, the Norway-Netherlands' 700MW NorNed and the 2GW IFA line connecting the UK and France, and the potential for a supergrid capable of pulling in the North Sea's rich wind resources — potentially 65GW by 2030, enough to make up more 25% of electricity generation in Europe — comes into focus.

Although critical to the longer-term future of Europe's renewables vision, bigger and beefier interconnectors are only a first step in the region's electricity infrastructure build-out. What is needed, according to the offshore wind industry, is a"meshed" grid woven between these trunklines that would mean the giant projects off Britain and Germany now on the drawing boards could be wired in over much shorter (read "less expensive") distances.

The savings from a meshed grid would be enormous. Estimates varying widely, from €1.5bn to €13bn, but even by the European Commission's more conservative calculations, the figure could be €5.1bn — a major fillip for the fast-evolving offshore wind business.

Expansion and reconfiguration of the European grid to deal with coal and nuclear plant retirements and the rapid growth of offshore wind generation represents a big prize indeed, according to figures from Navigant Research. Over the next decade, the continent is expected to account for more than half of the submarine cable projects around the globe, a market forecast to grow from $16.8bn this year to $24.8bn in 2024.

Led by Europe's Energy Union framework project, the Dutch, who take over the EU presidency in the first half of next year, could exercise great sway in how swiftly plans for a North Sea network move from idea to reality.

But it could be Britain, armed with a soon-to-be-unveiled study — contributed to by developers of the Dogger Bank, Hornsea and East Anglia mega-zones — on the regulatory changes needed for a meshed grid that proves most influential over the medium term, not least as it holds the EU reins for the second half of 2017.

The paradox for offshore wind infrastructure is that unlike the wider sector, it is the regulatory side that is lagging behind the technology.

Ultra-large turbines and high-capacity, low-loss HVDC lines are moving towards the mainstream. Matters of financial and regulatory logistics and how cross-border offshore power is transported, allocated and traded need concrete resolution before the European supergrid can be reeled out in full.

Canada cements tariffs on Chinese Solar PV modules, By Karl-Erik Stromsta Recharge News in New York,, July 06 2015

Caroline Ingram/Flickr

Canada has become the latest country to finalise duties on China-made PV cells and modules, with the tariffs set to remain in place for five years following a formal investigation into the practices of China’s solar giants.

The ruling covers most types of PV modules, including those based on crystalline silicon and thin-film technologies.

Earlier this year Canadian border authorities determined that Chinese PV manufacturers had dumped subsidized product into the Canadian market.

The Canadian International Trade Tribunal (CITT) then found “reasonable indication” that those practices were harming – or at least threatened to harm – Canadian solar companies.

The CITT is an independent, quasi-judicial that reports to Parliament through the Ministry of Finance.

Preliminary duties ranging from 50.6% (for JA Solar) to 202.5% (Wuxi Suntech) were slapped on nine individual Chinese suppliers, with a duty of 286.1% applying to all other companies.

The CITT has now finalised its decision that while Chinese modules have not yet caused injury to Canadian solar companies, they threaten to do so. That conclusion is enough to cement the tariffs.

The duties will remain in place for five years. An exception was made for one particular type of module -- 195W, 72-cell monocrystalline models -- with the CITT offering no explanation for the carve-out.

While the figures differ by country and company, Canada’s adoption of tariffs mirrors similar decisions in the US and the European Union in recent years.

EU ProSun, spearheaded by SolarWorld, recently asked the European Commission to extend the minimum import prices on Chinese PV kit beyond their December 2015 expiration date.

The imposition of tariffs on Chinese modules has sparked intense and acrimonious debate across the global solar industry.

Downstream solar installers in Canada – like their peers in the US and Europe – have lobbied against tariffs, arguing that the cheaper PV modules are, the faster the solar industry can grow.

Chinese solar manufacturers -- including players like Canadian Solar, which has a large factory in Ontario -- say that trade duties of any kind stifle growth in the critical global renewable-energy sector.

But Western solar manufacturers – a dwindling bunch, by any measure – counter that the solar industry should be more geographically diversified, and warn that Chinese producers may raise prices once they have thoroughly cornered the market.