The Swedish Energy Agency (SEA) on the behalf of the government has examined two ways to reduce grid connection costs for offshore wind.
One would involve moving the grid connection point to the offshore wind farm, while the second would subsidise developers for a portion of the connection costs.
Under the first proposal, Sweden’s grid operators Svenska Kraftnat would be responsible for the connection with funding provided through an increased grid tariff to consumers.
SEA said this approach would be unfair to the onshore wind industry and other power generators, which would continue to pay for connection costs.
“It is also the agency’s assessment that there would be no incentive for wind power producers to select locations that lead to cost-efficient connections if they are not obligated to pay any portion of the connection costs,” SEA added.
The second approach would see subsidies introduced to cover the undersea cable and associated transformers, which, SEA said, “would create conditions more comparable to those of onshore wind”.
The agency said that another benefit is that the “total cost of the removal of connection costs would be limited while retaining an incentive to connection locations that are cost effective”.
It added that “it is important, regardless of which model is chosen, to have some form of selection criteria and minimum requirements for proposed offshore wind projects connecting to the grid”.
Image: Pixabay
Swedes probe offshore grid costs
By EBS