Introduction

Welcome to the first ever Energy Transition Mashup.

As our analysts continue to advance our coverage of news and activities from across the energy transition space we have decided to create a dedicated newsletter to keep you up to date with some of the major news and activities in this sector each month.

We will also use this space to keep you up to date with the latest developments we are making at MapStand. Showcasing some of the datasets we have in development in order to provide our users with the news and geospatial data they need to support them through their energy transition journey.

This month, amongst the key news items, we have seen progress in the construction of the worlds largest offshore floating windfarm, Hywind Tampen. The Ministry for the Ecological Transition in France has unveiled the 6 candidates who have progressed to the final stage of a planned 1GW offshore wind farm off the coast of Normandy and Storegga Geotechnologies, Shell and newly formed Harbour Energy have become equal partners through to a Final Investment Decision of the Acorn CCS and Hydrogen projects construction, operation and beyond.

At MapStand, we have continued progressing our energy transition datasets and will be launching new datasets soon. If you would like to find out more about our offering or support its direction by becoming a partner then please don’t hesitate to get in touch at info@mapstand.com.

Francis Cram
CEO
MapStand

Energy Transition

OGA Bacton Energy Hub Area Plan: Hydrogen Potential

The OGA commissioned Progressive Energy to undertake a study in December 2020 to analyse the hydrogen demand potential in Bacton and the South East of England.

The Southern North Sea has been a critical part of the UK's energy system for half a century and could continue to have a key role to play for decades to come; with Bacton playing an instrumental role. The study was commissioned to evaluate the demand for, and potential for, generation of hydrogen in the Bacton area; to develop a fuller understanding of the potential requirements for future hydrocarbon production and repurposing of infrastructure to enable this; and to develop a future vision for the Southern North Sea and Bacton.

The study has concluded that the Bacton area has the potential to demonstrate energy transition in action by becoming a significant hydrogen production site for London and the South East. A sustainable market for this hydrogen is expected to develop and it is anticipated that blue hydrogen will be the most commercially viable option in the 2030's and early 2040's. This will provide the time for the maturation of green hydrogen technology and for green hydrogen to become more cost competitive on an industrial scale by the late 2040's and early 2050's.

The Southern North Sea has sufficient indigenous hydrocarbon reserves to provide the feedstock required to meet the increasing blue hydrogen demand; creating value whilst helping to meet UK energy demands and supporting the UK's transition to Net Zero. Blue hydrogen generation could utilise the existing hydrocarbon infrastructure and extensive CO2 storage potential the Southern North Sea has to offer, with green hydrogen being used to redeploy constrained wind energy. The Southern North Sea can therefore make a valuable contribution to decarbonising the UK energy mix.

However, action is required now to ensure the continued production and development of natural gas in the near term; this will be needed to protect existing infrastructure and to ensure feedstock availability for blue hydrogen. Failure to act now could see infrastructure prematurely decommissioned and hydrocarbon opportunities lost, which would have a credible impact on realising this value for the region.

Read the full article here.

Construction progress at Hywind Tampen

The largest floating wind farm in the world "Hywind Tampen" has its concrete foundations completed by Aker Solutions. The 11 substructures are currently being towed to Vindafjord from the wind project yard in Stord, Norway.

Equinor's 88MW Hywind Tampen is expected to be the first-ever wind farm to power oil & gas platforms and supply electricity to the Snorre and Gulfaks offshore operations in the Norwegian North Sea. The 11 turbines will be expected to provide 35% of the annual power for platforms (Snorre A and B and Gullfaks A, B and C) whilst also reducing CO2 emissions by 200,000 tons a year. The completed wind turbines are expected to be towed to Tampen in early summer 2022, coming online later in 2022.

Read the full article here.

France unveils 6 candidates for Normandy offshore tender

The Ministry for the Ecological Transition in France (Ministère de l'Environnement) has named the six candidates for progressing to the final stage of a planned 1GW offshore wind farm off the coast of Normandy within the 500km2 development zone.

The candidates for the 900-1050MW Normandy project are Iberdrola, Shell, OW Ocean Winds (ENGIE and EDPR NA Distributed Generation joint venture), Eoliennes en Mer Manche Normandie, a project company of EDF Renouvelables, Maple Power Ltd (Maple Power Ltd is a joint venture of Enbridge and CPP Investments), a Total and RWE consortium and a consortium formed by Vattenfall, wpd offshore solutions GmbH and Banque des Territoires.

The wind conditions and seabed offshore Normandy are considered very favourable for offshore wind energy production at a competitive cost as well as described to have a low level of fishing activity and biodiversity issues.

A winner will be selected in 2022 with the aim to commission the windfarm by 2028 which will contribute to the French government multi-year energy program target of 5.2-6.2 GW installed capacity by 2028.

MENCK to partner with Van Oord on the installation of Italy's first offshore wind farm

MENCK has signed a contract with Dutch marine contractor Van Oord to deliver the hammer spread for the installation of the Taranto offshore windfarm, Italy’s first.

The installation of 10 monopiles, each supporting a 3-MW turbine, will begin in Q3 2021 this year using the MPI Resolution and is expected to take 16 days. MENCK will supply one MHU 800S hydraulic hammer spread, including service technicians.

The Taranto project is a milestone for offshore wind power in Italy and southern Europe in general. The 30-MW development will be Italy's first offshore wind farm and the first to be built in the Mediterranean Sea. The project is being run by Italian company Renexia, which is developing other offshore wind projects around the world.

Read the full article here.

TechnipFMC and Bombora Form Strategic Partnership to Develop a Floating Wave and Wind Power Project

TechnipFMC a global leader in the energy industry, and Bombora, a leading wave energy technology company, have formed a strategic partnership to develop a floating wave and wind power project in support of a more sustainable future.

The relationship brings together TechnipFMC's unique technologies and experience delivering complex integrated Engineering, Procurement, Construction and Installation (iEPCI™) projects offshore with Bombora's patented multi-megawatt mWave™ technology that converts wave energy into electricity.

The partnership will initially focus on TechnipFMC and Bombora's InSPIRE project. With engineering work initiated in November 2020, the partnership is developing a hybrid system utilizing Bombora's mWave™ technology. The hybrid system demonstrator will deliver 6 megawatts of combined floating wind and wave power, followed by Series 1 and Series 2 commercial platforms which are expected to deliver 12 and 18 megawatts, respectively.

Read the full article here.

SSE Thermal and Equinor join forces on plans for first-of-a-kind hydrogen and carbon capture projects in the Humber

Equinor and SSE Thermal have unveiled plans to jointly develop two first-of-a-kind, low-carbon power stations in the UK’s Humber region, comprising one of the UK’s first power stations with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, and the world’s first 100% hydrogen-fuelled power station.

The two decarbonised power stations, which would form a ‘clean power hub’ near Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire, would be among the first in the world to utilise CCS and hydrogen technologies. Keadby 3 and Keadby Hydrogen would replace older, carbon-intensive generation on the electricity grid, providing flexible and efficient power to support intermittent renewable generation and maintain security of supply through the net-zero transition.

Read the full article here.

Storegga, Shell, and Harbour Energy become equal partners in the Acorn Project

Upon signing of the Acorn Development Agreement Storegga Geotechnologies (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pale Blue Dot Energy), Shell and Harbour Energy have become equal partners through to a Final Investment Decision of the CCS and Hydrogen projects construction, operation and beyond.

CO2 will come from the St Fergus Gas Terminal a carbon-intensive cluster in Aberdeenshire as well as imported CO2 from the rest of the UK and Europe into Peterhead Port. The Acorn Project is set to store 5Mt/yr of CO2 by 2030 which is half the CO2 emissions set out in the UK Government's Ten Point Plan for a green Industrial Revolution by 2030.

Both CCS and hydrogen projects are critical for providing a pathway for Scotland and the UK to decarbonise to reach #netzero by decarbonising industrial clusters and taking North Sea natural gas and reforming it into clean-burning hydrogen with associated CO2 stored undersea in the Acorn CS001 storage sites.

Read the full article here.

Ørsted acquires Ireland and UK onshore wind power platform from Brookfield Renewable

Ørsted has entered into an agreement with Brookfield Renewable, a global owner and operator of renewable power assets, to acquire a 100 % equity interest in its existing Ireland and UK onshore wind business, B (BRI).

The agreement is based on an enterprise valuation of BRI of EUR 571 million as of 31 December 2020. The final price will be subject to customary adjustments.

With the acquisition of BRI, Ørsted enters the European onshore market. BRI, headquartered in Cork, Ireland, is a developer, owner, and operator of onshore wind farms.

BRI has an attractive portfolio of 389 MW in operation and under construction, 149 MW advanced development, and more than 1 GW of development pipeline in Ireland and the UK.

Read the full article here.

Barents Blue Project short-listed by Enova as Norwegian candidate for EU's IPCEI Hydrogen

Horisont Energi AS Project Barents Blue, the first world-scale blue ammonia plant in Europe, has been short-listed by Enova as one of five candidate hydrogen projects in Norway for possible participation in the Important Projects of Common European Interest (IPCEI) on hydrogen.

The Barents Blue project is a world-scale clean ammonia project in Finnmark in Northern Norway, which includes planned CO2 storage offshore. The facility will convert clean hydrogen into ammonia, an easily transported hydrogen carrier, which can be converted back to hydrogen at the destination or used directly in many applications. Horisont Energi entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with Equinor in November 2020 for the development of Barents Blue.

Read the full article here.

Chevron, Toyota Pursue Strategic Alliance on Hydrogen

Chevron U.S.A. Inc., through its Chevron Products Company division , and Toyota Motor North America, Inc. announced a memorandum of understanding to explore a strategic alliance to catalyze and lead the development of commercially viable, large-scale businesses in hydrogen, with the goal to advance a functional, thriving global hydrogen economy.

Chevron and Toyota are seeking to work on three main strategic priorities: collaborating on hydrogen-related public policy measures that support the development of hydrogen infrastructure; understanding current and future market demand for light-duty and heavy-duty fuel cell electric vehicles and supply opportunities for that demand; and exploring opportunities to jointly pursue research and development in hydrogen powered transportation and storage.

Read the full article here.

BOEM Announces Environmental Review of Proposed Wind Energy Facility Offshore Rhode Island and Massachusetts

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) today announced a Notice of Intent (NOI) to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the Construction and Operations Plan (COP) submitted by Revolution Wind, LLC (Revolution Wind).

If approved by BOEM, Revolution Wind would be allowed to construct and operate an 880-megawatt (MW) wind energy facility offshore Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

The publication of the NOI opens a 30-day public comment period. During this time, BOEM will hold three virtual public scoping meetings and accept comments to inform the preparation of the EIS.

The Biden-Harris administration has set an ambitious target of 30 gigawatts (GW) of installed offshore wind energy by 2030, which will create nearly 80,000 jobs.

Read the full article here.