DONG Energy has decided not to invest in a GBP 450 million offshore wind hub at the Able Marine Energy Park (AMEP) in the Humber after a recent report showed that UK east coast ports have the capability to support the pipeline of offshore wind projects which will be built out in the North Sea in the decades ahead.
”The Strategic Review of East Coast Staging and Construction Facilities, which reported on 5 August, included a thorough examination of potential hub sites including the proposed Able Marine Energy Park (AMEP) in the Humber,” DONG Energy said in a statement.
”It has concluded that current ports can support demand from the anticipated offshore wind project pipeline and it would be difficult to justify the scale of investment required to promote a single large-scale staging and manufacturing facility.”
DONG Energy and ABLE UK signed a Memorandum of Understanding in July 2015 ”to explore the potential opportunities for using AMEP to support construction of our wind farm pipeline.”
However, following the review, DONG concluded that the timescales for development of such a hub would preclude it providing support for any of the company’s planned projects. DONG said that the company will now ”fully support and engage with the industry approach.”
The decision not to build the AMEP offshore wind hub will not affect DONG’s plans to invest GBP 6 billion in the Humber region, the company said.