A sale has been agreed for Race Bank offshore wind farm’s transmission assets.
In accordance with the UK electricity generating regime, a wind farm owner cannot hold on to the infrastructure – valued at £472.5 million.
The package, to be taken on by Diamond Transmission Partners in an undisclosed deal, includes the offshore substations within the 91-turbine field 17 miles off the Lincolnshire coast, export cables that bring the power back through The Wash, and the onshore substation, located at Walpole, close to Sutton Bridge.
Completed in 2017, has a generating capacity of 573MW, enough to power over half a million UK homes.
At the time of being laid in late spring 2016, the export cable was the largest to be deployed in the world, with construction co-ordinated from Grimsby.
Race Bank Wind Farm Ltd is a joint venture with 50 per cent held by Ørsted, and the remainder by three financial partners. Diamond is a 50:50 partnership between Diamond Transmission Corporation Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Mitsubishi Corporation, and HICL Infrastructure Plc, an investment company.
Burbo Bank in Liverpool Bay, off the west coast, is already part of the portfolio, with DTC holding nine assets in the UK and Germany, with a capacity of 4.4GW and value of £3.6 billion.
Elsewhere in the Humber cluster, international infrastructure group Balfour Beatty took over Westermost Rough and Humber Gateway's OFTOs in 2016, under the Ofgem co-ordinated handover.
