Total is among the shortlisted bidders for an offshore wind power project that has been estimated to cost some $7 billion, Bloomberg reports, citing unnamed sources in the know.
The Seagreen project will have a capacity of 1.075 GW, divided into two wind farms to be built in the North Sea. Construction works began last month and the project is scheduled to be operational in 2024.
The company leading Seagreen is UK utility SSE, which has been looking for shareholding partners in order to share the substantial costs and risks associated with the wind farms because it will not be fully supported by the UK government.
Last year, Bloomberg recalls, SSE secured a 15-year contract with the government for 454 MW of power produced by the Seagreen farms, which left the output from the rest of the installation to be sold on the open market.
Total, like most other supermajors, has ambitious plans in the renewable energy area. The company, which recently announced it would sell half of its wind and solar assets in France, also said it planned to boost its international renewable energy capacity from 3 GW to 25 GW by 25 GW. By 2022, the company says on its website, it plans to operate 7 GW of renewable energy installations.
The UK is a natural destination for Total's renewable plans and the company has been expanding its workforce in the country has it has been in Denmark, another leader in renewable energy and notably wind power in Europe.
The UK, however, came into the lead on new wind power additions last year with 2.5 GW in new installations. Its total at the end of 2019 reached 9.71 GW. This year, during storm Ciara, wind power temporarily came to account for 44 percent of the country's power output, setting a record.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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Irina is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing on the oil and gas industry. More