JERSEY Electricity is ‘accelerating research’ into the creation of an offshore wind farm within the Island’s territorial waters, the company’s chief executive has revealed.
Chris Ambler made the comments after Environment Minister Jonathan Renouf said the development of large-scale renewable energy – particularly through wind turbines – was to be investigated by the new government as a ‘key priority’.
The former head of Jersey Met, John Searson, also recently called for the new States to urgently debate creating a network of turbines off the west coast at the edge of the Island’s waters.
Mr Ambler said that Jersey Electricity was ‘accelerating research’ into the development of an offshore wind farm, having unsuccessfully brought proposals for such a project to the government in 2015.
‘There is a significant, new opportunity as we think the technology is close to being economically viable and there is a real appetite in Jersey for energy independence off the back of the fishing dispute with the French and the war in Ukraine.
‘JE was investing a lot in large solar PV in Jersey and was continuing to explore tidal power, which was still early stage and expensive, but offshore wind was by far the most significant opportunity for meaningful energy diversification in the medium term,’ he added.
The Bridging Island Plan, a document that sets out planning policy until 2025, makes reference to an offshore wind pre-feasibility study, which concluded that Jersey had ‘significant offshore wind potential’ and that extracting energy from five per cent of the Island’s waters ‘would satisfy over three times Jersey’s current annual demand’.
Mr Ambler said: ‘Jersey has good wind speeds, shallow waters and good connections with the grid. We could, as an island, catalyse a whole industry from this.’ He added that a ‘decently sized’ development could produce additional revenue and hundreds of jobs through construction, maintenance and the exportation of electricity to other jurisdictions, such as France.
He explained that it was ‘too early to say’ how big the development would be, or where it would go, but noted that a single 500-megawatt wind farm – the size of the Saint Brieuc offshore project – would produce enough power to satisfy ‘three or four times the Island’s annual electricity requirement’.
‘We are scaling up our resources further and are hopeful and excited that we will be able to get real traction and work closely with the new government on this,’ he said.
‘Nobody wants to fill the ocean with wind farms, but I sense there is an appetite for one or two developments on the outer edges of the Island’s territorial waters,’ he added.
Mr Ambler explained that feasibility studies, as well as technical and environmental research, were currently ongoing – and that the project would probably take between eight and ten years to complete were it to be approved.
‘There is a lot of work that needs to be done. We also have to think about the visual impact and how close it might be to the shore. We want to make sure that any project we undertake leaves a positive legacy.’
