ISLANDERS could be invited to invest in a multi-billion-pound offshore wind farm – capable of generating eight times the Island’s annual electricity needs – if Jersey Electricity succeeds with its ambitions for a large-scale development in local waters.
The utility’s chief executive, Chris Ambler, said such a scheme could enable Islanders to take ‘an ownership interest’ in the development with investments as low as £500.
Mr Ambler said the company was still assessing the feasibility of an offshore project within the Island’s territorial waters, but confirmed that potential commercial partners had made ‘approaches’.
‘Our ambition here is to successfully deliver the Channel Islands’ largest infrastructure project – a one gigawatt offshore wind farm.
‘We would love to see the creation of a new long-term source of clean, green power that Jersey can benefit from and feel proud of,’ he said.
‘We are doing quite a lot of work on feasibility analysis and how a partnership should be constructed and we are exploring prospective partners because choosing the right partner is extremely important to unlock the opportunity. We are also looking at grid connections and the Island’s energy system, what that looks like in the future and how an offshore wind farm might support that.’
According to Mr Ambler, a one-gigawatt offshore wind farm would be capable of generating ‘between seven or eight times the Island’s annual electricity requirement’.
‘It is substantially more than we can absorb into the Island, so we have to look at alternative ways of getting energy into the French system,’ he explained. ‘We would have to sell some to third parties.’
He echoed Environment Minister Jonathan Renouf’s recent comments that an operational wind farm was around eight years’ away – and estimated that a one-gigawatt project would cost somewhere in the region of two to three billion pounds.
‘Clearly that is not going to be funded from within Jersey. We have to look at external investors to come and deploy that kind of capital,’ he acknowledged.
‘Because it is reliant on inward investment from third parties, we have to make sure at all times that this is an investable proposition. That means that it must be attractive for external investors and that we – working with government and with our consortium partners – do everything we can to de-risk the project.
‘What we would love to see is an opportunity for the community to really benefit themselves, in the form of lower-cost energy, but also potentially an opportunity to invest in offshore renewables themselves. Whether it is at a lower level – perhaps an investment of £500 or £1,000 – to actually take an ownership interest in the development, right the way through to [investment] at a more significant level.
‘We want a development in Jersey that the Island can feel proud of, that it can be a part of and that it can benefit from.’
