Octopus Energy Generation’s fund management team has bought a c.8% stake in the 270 MW Lincs offshore wind farm off the coast of Skegness in the East of England.
The wind farm, which has been operational since 2013, is made up of 75 wind turbines across 35 square kilometres, and is operated by global renewable energy developer Ørsted. It generates enough energy to power 240,000 UK homes a year. This equates to taking nearly 200,000 petrol cars off the road and avoiding over 350,000 tonnes of carbon emissions every year.
Offshore wind is one of the pillars of the UK Government’s plans to boost Britain’s energy security. The UK already has 11 GW of offshore wind and in its recent Energy Security Strategy, the Government raised the target for offshore wind to 50 GW by 2030 and announced reforms to streamline the process for planning and connecting offshore wind farms to the grid. This comes as costs for offshore wind in the UK have fallen by around two thirds over the last eight years.
Momentum with floating offshore wind farm developer
This builds on the fund management team’s deep expertise in offshore wind. Octopus has also been ramping up its activity in new innovative technologies like floating offshore wind turbines. Octopus invested in floating offshore wind developer Simply Blue Group in 2021, taking a 24% stake to speed up the company’s expansion in the UK and abroad.
Simply Blue has grown five-fold over the last 18 months and has scaled its global pipeline of floating offshore wind projects to 9 GW, with 3 GW in the UK and Ireland. In recent projects, Ørsted joined the Simply Blue Group and Subsea 7 joint venture for the Salamander floating offshore wind development off the Scottish Coast.
Zoisa North-Bond, CEO of Octopus Energy Generation, comments: “We’re extremely excited to make our first green waves in offshore wind energy – a key pillar of the UK’s renewable energy mix. The UK has tremendous offshore wind resources. By backing a large onshore wind farm as well as developing floating offshore wind power, we’re tapping into this vital technology to accelerate our journey to energy independence.
“We’re dipping our toe in the water with this investment – but this is only the beginning. We’ve got big ambitions and innovative ideas for offshore wind and are going to massively ramp up our activities in this area over the coming 12 months.”