Multi-use of the sea should be part of our future energy mix

Recent reports, including analysis by the respected Climate Change Committee, all set out the scale of the problem – long lead times for consents plus a decade-long queue to connect to the grid means the UK will have to use every form of renewable energy possible if it is to come close to meeting its low carbon commitments.

On land, the UK government has dropped its de facto ban on onshore wind in England. Countrywide, we are already seeing developers maximising the use of valuable development land, and the grid connections that come with them, by co-locating solar panels and battery storage, and in some cases green hydrogen generation within existing wind farms, to create hybrid energy parks.

This makes perfect sense, both from a developer’s perspective and from that of National Grid: by maximising green power delivery to the network from different sources and more closely aligning supply and demand curves, energy supply can be boosted at peak times and the need for storage therefore reduced.

So why not take the same approach offshore? Creating multi-use offshore energy parks would mean scarce seabed acres could be more fully utilised, protected, and power supplied to the grid during periods of peak demand.

China aside, the UK leads the world in offshore wind development, with gigawatts of fixed bottom farms already generating and a new fleet of floating farms set to come on stream in the next decade and beyond.

These are multi-billion-pound infrastructure schemes which offer the prospect of huge inward investment but take years to develop – with the lack of grid and supply chain bottlenecks major constraints.

Given these constraints, it surely makes sense to replicate the approach of our onshore cousins and maximise the use of this limited grid capacity – and increasingly congested seabed – through multi-use of the ocean.

By fostering novel and emerging technologies, such as ocean power and subsea energy storage, alongside floating offshore wind and/or solar, the UK has a real opportunity to take a global lead, and GB Energy should have a key role to play in that, fostering the use of such technologies and opportunities together

The numbers stack up. A recently published study shows that combined wind-wave farms could lower the cost of energy of the wind farm by 17% through better utilisation of the grid when the wind does not blow.

However, ocean power, and in particular wave, is still in its infancy. Commercially, it is, by its very nature, considered expensive when taken in isolation.

There are also obvious benefits though – balancing the grid, the creation of a home-grown industry with global export opportunities, and reducing the overall need for storage – and costs will come down through further innovation and deployment.

It is a well-trodden and well understood path: solar power started off as ultra-expensive watts in the 1960s space race and look where we are now. It is the same with onshore and offshore wind – cost is a function of deployment at scale and pace.

Having said that, ocean power will not ‘just happen.’ Large scale first-of-a-kind energy projects require £10s of millions of inward investments, and offshore energy parks and grid connections will be required too, which are often beyond the scope of a single developer.

However, the Crown Estate and the UK government – including through GB Energy – now have all the levers required to make wave, or rather ocean energy, and hybrid energy parks a genuine prospect for the future.

As a state-backed site developer, GB Energy can ensure that seabed areas are pre-consented for as many future uses as possible, including wave; and as seabed owner, the Crown Estate can mandate the adoption of multiple technologies as a pre-requisite for new leases as part of a well thought-out business plan to capitalise on ‘more out of less.’ The Crown Estate Scotland could do the same.

In parallel, the UK government can ensure future contract for difference (CfD) rounds require bidders to include a set number of new technologies in auction rounds.

Hybrid offshore energy parks could be modest at first – say 10 MW of new technologies per GW of offshore wind. The effect on technology firms like Mocean Energy would be transformational though, as we have seen with floating solar sites in the Netherlands. With firm orders from major developers, deployment would go up and costs would come down, and energy users would reap the benefits

The only word of caution is against trying to squeeze too much out of the sector – if the Crown Estate demands high lease fees and the CfD mechanism continues to focus solely on cost, then global investors may take their mobile capital elsewhere, and no-one will win. There needs to be enough in it for investors to use the UK supply chain and make a decent return.

But get it right, and the prize is appealing. Multi-use offshore energy parks would offer better use of the seabed, ocean space, maximise grid utilisation, and would foster a new wave of home-grown technology development.

Now is a key moment for the country, for GB Energy, and for a more diverse energy supply.

 

 

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Read the article online at: https://www.energyglobal.com/special-reports/29012025/multi-use-of-the-sea-should-be-part-of-our-future-energy-mix/