Europe Energy Review

Deals for development of European oil and gas resources, the pledge of the new UK government to materially boost renewables capacity installations, and numerous deals in solar, wind, hydro, and hydrogen across Europe were the highlights in the European energy sector this past month.

Oil & Gas

Canadian company Tenaz Energy said it had entered into an agreement with Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschappij B.V. (NAM), a 50/50 joint venture between Shell and ExxonMobil, to acquire all of the issued and outstanding shares of NAM Offshore B.V., which operates in the Dutch North Sea. The base consideration for the deal is 165 million euros ($246 million), prior to closing adjustments and contingent payments. The acquired assets include substantially all of NAM’s offshore exploration and production business, including associated pipeline infrastructure and onshore processing in the Netherlands.

Italian engineering group Saipem has been awarded a contract to ensure the supervision and the subsea intervention services of the GreenStream pipeline throughout the offshore and onshore sections at the Mellitah terminal in Libya and the terminal at Gela in Sicily, Italy.
 
The new contract, awarded by GreenStream BV, merges the activities that Saipem has been undertaking for GreenStream since 2008 as to asset integrity, inspection, maintenance, and emergency pipeline services, and expands them to cover a wider range of scenarios and customer’s needs.
 
“With this award Saipem will contribute to managing the integrity of a fundamental underwater infrastructure for the Italian energy supply with an integrated approach, thus confirming the company’s leadership in the underwater domain with promptly available and efficient solutions,” the Italian company said.

bp has completed its acquisition of Germany’s GETEC ENERGIE GmbH, a supplier of energy to commercial and industrial (C&I) customers in Germany.  

The acquisition will accelerate the growth of bp’s European gas and power presence, as well as providing opportunities to grow integrated lower carbon energy solutions for C&I energy customers in Germany and elsewhere in Europe.

Currently, GETEC ENERGIE supplies around 40 TWh of power and gas per year – serving about 400 C&I customers in Germany and supplying over 100,000 gas and power meters directly.

Led by Cord Wiesner, the chief executive officer of GETEC ENERGIE GmbH, the company will join bp trading & shipping, as part of the international gas & power trading business.

Low Carbon Energy

The UK government introduced a Bill to set up Great British Energy, a publicly owned clean power company headquartered in Scotland, which will help accelerate investment in renewable energy such as offshore wind.

“Legislation will be brought forward to help the country achieve energy independence and unlock investment in energy infrastructure,” His Majesty said in his Speech to both Houses of Parliament.

The industry welcomed the measures in the King’s Speech to boost renewables.

“It is particularly welcome to see the announcement of a Planning and Infrastructure Bill, to ensure that essential infrastructure can be deployed without delay,” RenewableUK’s Executive Director of Policy Ana Musat said.  
 
According to RenewableUK, it is essential to get the framework for GB Energy right so that the UK can secure the maximum amount of private capital.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Energy Secretary Ed Miliband have announced the first major partnership between Great British Energy and The Crown Estate to unleash billions of investment in clean power.

The UK’s Climate Change Committee (CCC) has assessed that only a third of the emissions reductions required to achieve the country’s 2030 target are currently covered by credible plans, and the UK is currently off track for Net Zero.   

“The country’s 2030 emissions reduction target is at risk. The new Government has an opportunity to course-correct, but it will need to be done as a matter of urgency to make up for lost time. They are off to a good start,” said Professor Piers Forster, interim Chair of the Climate Change Committee.

“Action needs to extend beyond electricity, with rapid progress needed on electric cars, heat pumps and tree planting.”

A few weeks after taking office, the new UK government announced that the budget for this year’s renewable energy auction is being increased by £500 million to over £1.5 billion - a record-high budget. The funding is expected to help build new green infrastructure as part of the mission to deliver clean power by 2030.  

The budget for this year includes £1.1 billion for offshore wind – the backbone of the UK’s clean energy mission – which has more budget available than all of the previous auctions combined, sending a strong signal to industry to invest in UK waters, the government said.

The raised budget will unlock more investment in renewable energy projects in the UK, RenewableUK said.

While the industry association welcomed the budget boost, it said that “This auction will not unlock investment in all shovel-ready projects, so the Government will need to ensure that the next auction rounds focus on project delivery to ensure we achieve the Prime Minister's clean power mission and increase the confidence of investors in the UK's supply chain.”

The UK offshore sector’s leading trade body, Offshore Energies UK, has warned that the goal of net zero power must be delivered by building on the UK’s existing industrial strengths, creating jobs and growing domestic companies – not simply by importing the technology and skills from other countries.

A report commissioned by OEUK offered a new blueprint mapping out how the UK can meet the new government target of net zero power by 2030.

“It will require a herculean effort by government, regulators and industry working together to deliver change to UK infrastructure on a scale unseen since the industrial revolution,” OEUK Chief Executive David Whitehouse said.  

The British Hydropower Association and Scottish Renewables have urged the UK Government to support the deployment of long-duration electricity storage (LDES), including pumped storage hydro (PSH).

In a letter to Ed Miliband, the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Ian Murray, the Secretary of State for Scotland, and Jo Stevens, the Secretary of State for Wales, the associations call for a ‘cap and floor’ mechanism to accelerate investment and demonstrate a “step-change” in decision-making. The UK has a pipeline of more than 9 gigawatts (GW) including several ‘shovel ready’ projects, but inaction has been costing consumers.

“As a well-established technology with a multi-gigawatt pipeline and several ‘shovel ready’ projects, Pumped Storage Hydro is a key technology to smoothly integrate the increase in generation we require, help reduce system costs and deliver huge economic benefits across the country,” said Claire Mack, Chief Executive of Scottish Renewables.

In company news, Macquarie Asset Management has announced that it intends to acquire, via its managed funds, an additional 39.25-percent stake in the Lynn and Inner Dowsing offshore wind farms off the coast of Lincolnshire from funds managed by BlackRock.

Operational since 2009, the adjacent offshore wind farms have a combined installed capacity of approximately 194 MW and generate enough electricity to power the equivalent of more than 160,000 UK homes each year.   
 
Gilkes Energy and SSE said they plan to progress a new pumped storage hydropower scheme at Loch Fearna in Scotland’s Great Glen. The Fearna Pumped Storage Hydro (PSH) project, located at the western end of Glengarry around 25 km west of Invergarry, envisages the development of tunnels and a new power station connecting SSE Renewables’ existing reservoir at Loch Quoich with an upper reservoir at Loch Fearna.

The proposed development would be up to 1.8 GW in generating capacity and capable of producing around 37 GWh of stored energy capacity. This makes it, alongside the Earba project, one of the two largest PSH developments in the UK in terms of installed capacity and energy stored.  

Wood Consulting said it had played a key role in securing more than 1 billion euros of funding for its clients in Europe, enabling three major clean energy projects to reach final investment decisions (FID).

Wood’s team of technical consultants served as Lenders’ Technical Advisors in advancing Lithuania’s largest onshore wind farm.

Wood’s expertise was also key in facilitating European renewables developer Renewable Power Capital (RPC) in finalising financing for its 553 MW onshore wind portfolio in Sweden, and acted as owner's engineer for the Catalina green hydrogen project, a first-of-its-kind project in Spain, which will combine 1.5 G of wind and solar energy to power a 500-MW electrolyser to produce green hydrogen.

Repsol and EDF Renewables have reached an exclusivity agreement to join forces for future offshore wind tenders in Spain and Portugal, considering the significant growth opportunities in the Iberian Peninsula.

In Norway, Kitemill said it had received 2.5 million euros from the European Innovation Council (EIC) to fast-track the commercialization of its Airborne Wind Energy (AWE) technology.

“Our technology has now been accepted and approved by the EU through three separate funding rounds. This tranche will help de-risk a critical phase for the KM2 and boost customer and public trust,” CEO Thomas Hårklau commented.
 
Battery storage developer Harmony Energy is set to deliver France’s largest battery energy storage system (BESS)—the Cheviré battery project – using Tesla Megapack technology. The project will mark a significant milestone for the French energy system, being France's first large-scale 2-hour battery.
 
Located in Nantes Saint-Nazaire Harbour, the 100 MW / 200 MWh large-scale renewable energy infrastructure will utilise Tesla Megapack and Autobidder technology and will provide enough electricity to power an estimated 170,000 homes for two hours – greater than the population of the City of Nantes.
 
France’s TotalEnergies has signed agreements with German renewable developer RWE to buy a 50-percent stake in OranjeWind, a 795 MW offshore wind farm under development in the Netherlands. TotalEnergies will dedicate its share of the renewable electricity production from this project to power 350 MW electrolyzer projects.

The European Commission has approved, under EU State aid rules, a 998- million euro Dutch scheme to support the production of renewable hydrogen. The scheme will support the construction of at least 200 MW of electrolysis capacity. The aid will be awarded through a competitive bidding process this year, with the tender open to projects with a capacity of at least 0.5 MW.

Onshore wave energy technology company Eco Wave Power Global AB officially launched works on its first MW-scale wave energy project, which will be located in the city of Porto, in Portugal.

The first MW project is being executed as part of a 20 MW Concession Agreement and will feature a first-of-its-kind underwater wave energy museum.   

Read the latest issue of the OGV Energy magazine HERE