Statkraft selects COWI for North Irish Sea Array bid

COWI will support Statkraft in preparing an auction application for the first offshore competition under the Renewable Electricity Support Scheme (ORESS-1) in Ireland.

COWI’s responsibilities for the proposed NISA wind farm include foundation concept design, electrical design, construction, O&M port assessment and cost model development.

Working against challenges in the marketplace, such as rising materials costs and pressures to increase renewable energy capacity, keeping the Levelised Cost of Energy (LCOE) at the forefront of the application will be central to all work on the project.

Damian McGirr, COWI’s senior market director in the UK, said: “COWI's strategy is to ensure lifetime cost and revenue generation at the centre of decision making in the early phases through the development to develop a detailed LCOE calculation model based on the available information and project basis early in the development.

MORE IN RENEWABLES

“The early model is then used to evaluate sensitivities to the LCOE, which enable targeted early phase development activities to optimise LCOE for the project, but also to reduce uncertainty in the areas where they have the biggest impact. This ensures that early-stage development resources and time are spent effectively to maximise benefit to our customers in terms of refining their CfD auction bids.”

If approved, the NISA development will play an important role in helping Ireland meet its ambitions of reaching 80 per cent renewable energy by 2030. According to Wind Energy Ireland, wind helped to provide 24 per cent of Ireland's electricity in September, 2022, and 31 per cent over the past 12 months. 

COWI, which has worked on over 1,000 wind power projects to date, and Statkraft are working to submit a bid by the end of 2022, ahead of the auction which is due to take place in the first half of 2023.