E.ON Climate & Renewables (ECR), the renewables unit of the German energy company E.ON, plans to invest in one offshore wind project every two years as the company halved its renewable energy investment pipeline due to changing market regulations, ECR’s CEO Michael Lewis told Reuters. ECR is cutting its pipeline from 10GW reported in summer 2015 to 5GW this year due to an increasing number of mature renewable energy markets in Europe making a switch from feed-in-tariffs to a competitive tendering process, which, according to Lewis, is making large-scale projects less certain. With the introduction of a competitive tendering system, only the best projects are going to win, Lewis said, adding that this is the main reason ECR is cutting the pipeline and focussing only on projects the company believes have a fair chance of being realized. Lewis said that ECR will set aside around EUR 1 billion gross each year to invest in new renewable energy capacity, including offshore wind, onshore wind, and solar energy. ECR is currently involved in the construction of the 400MW Rampion offshore wind farm off the UK, and the 385MW Arkona offshore wind farm in the German part of the Baltic Sea. The two projects have a combined value of around EUR 2.5 billion and are scheduled for commissioning between 2018 and 2019.
EON Climate & Renewables (ECR) intends to cut its pipeline from 10 GW in 2015 to 5 GW this year, investing in one offshore wind project every two years, as the European markets switching from feed-in-tariffs to a competitive tendering process encourages more selective spending on large-scale projects. The company is also looking at how it can reduce costs by using renewable energy sources such as solar and wind, which are cheaper than fossil fuels but not yet cost-competitive.