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LONDON (Alliance News) - A consortium of International Public Partnerships Ltd, Amber Infrastructure, and Transmission Investment has become the preferred bidder to own and operate the offshore transmission link to the Westermost Rough windfarm for the next 20 years, selected ahead of three other bidders.
The Office of the Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem), which regulates the electricity and gas markets in Britain, confirmed that the IPP consortium, Transmission Capital Partners, is the preferred bidder on the project, while Blue Transmission was named the reserve bidder.
"This tender exercise saw the lowest revenue bids, as a proportion of asset value, seen to date," Ofgem said in a statement.
Blue Transmission is a consortium of Mitsubishi Corp and 3i Group PLC's 3i Investments PLC. Balfour Beatty PLC's Balfour Beatty Investments Ltd and Equitix Ltd's group also had been shortlisted for the project, as had the Mari Energy Transmission group comprising Macquarie Capital Group Ltd and Frontier Power.
The Westermost Rough offshore wind farm is in the North Sea, about eight kilometres off the coast of Yorkshire, England. It features 35 wind turbines and has an installed capacity of 210 megawatts.
The transmission assets, which according to Ofgem have an estimated value of GBP172.3 million, are currently owned and being constructed by Westermost Rough Ltd. DONG Energy owns 50% of Westermost Rough, giving it the biggest stake in the joint venture ahead of Marubeni Corp and the UK Green Investment Bank, which have stakes of 25% each.
International Public Partnerships, a listed infrastructure investment company, expects to invest about GBP30 million when the agreements are signed and the conditions are met, which is expected in the fourth quarter of 2015.
"We believe that these assets are some of the most attractive in the UK market and are pleased to be able to make this further investment," International Public Partnerships Chairman Rupert Dorey said in a statement.
The Westermost Rough transmission assets are being tendered under a tender round launched in February 2014.
The four bidders' attentions now turn to the Humber Gateway project, with an estimated value of GBP173.3 million and also in the North Sea off the coast of Yorkshire, with Ofgem expected to decide on the award later in 2015.
International Public Partnerships shares were up 0.2% at 137.90 pence on Friday, while 3i Group shares were up 1.2% at 534.00p. Balfour Beatty shares were up 0.1% at 242.94p.
By Samuel Agini; samagini@alliancenews.com; @samuelagini
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