ETI to invest £25million in offshore wind project

The UK based company, formed from global industries BP, Caterpillar, EDF, E.ON, Rolls-Royce and Shell, is now seeking partners to help carry out the development by 2016. Dr David Clarke, ETI chief executive, said: "Our national energy systems modelling and our engineering design projects have shown that offshore wind could play a major role in providing clean, secure and affordable energy for the UK and will be an important part of the energy mix by 2050 alongside nuclear power, fossil fuel power stations fitted with carbon capture and storage and large scale energy efficiency measures. "Our studies have shown that access to high wind areas which are close to shore should be an attractive investment compared to some existing UK sites which are further from the coast in areas of lower wind. We also expect there is likely to be a considerable global market for floating wind turbines which can be developed in the UK." The plan, according to Dr Clarke, is to construct a turbine at a relatively near shore site in water between 60 and 100m deep. This will be operated for at least two years to show it can generate electricity, be maintained without specially designed vessels and to verify the predicted performance. The ETI will also commission a test site for the demonstrator with possible sites being provided to project participants during the design phase.