The European Commission has given approval for two offshore wind farm operators to merge, enabling them to generate economies of scale and reduce costs. The decision by the commission on Tuesday is a major boost to developers who have been struggling with high costs in recent years as they seek to build new projects off Britain’s shores. Seamade said it hopes the project will be fully financed by the end of the year, with construction beginning in 2019 and the facility operational by the end of 2020.
The European Commission has given approval for two offshore wind farm operators to merge, enabling them to generate economies of scale and reduce costs. Under teh deal Seastar and Mermaid will become a single entity called Seamade, which will develop two Belgian offshore wind projects with a combined capacity of 478 MW, equivalent to one quarter of all of Belgium's currently allocated offshore wind capacity. Seamade said it hopes the project will be fully financed by the end of the year, with construction beginning in 2019 and the facility operational by the end of 2020.