Energy giant pulls plug on £450m Humber scheme
DONG Energy has pulled out of a £450m scheme on the Humber Estuary which was expected to support thousands of jobs.
The Danish company, which signed a memorandum of understanding with Able UK for the development of an offshore wind operations hub at the Marine Energy Park last year, says that the UK project could not be developed in time to support its east coast wind farms.
It said, after a strategic review of east coast ports, that existing facilities can support demand.
A Dong Energy spokesman said: “The strategic review of east coast staging and construction facilities, which reported on Friday, included a thorough examination of potential hub sites, including the proposed Able Marine Energy Park. It has concluded that current ports can support demand from the anticipated offshore wind project pipeline and it would be difficult to justify the scale of investment required to promote a single large-scale staging and manufacturing facility.
“Dong Energy signed a memorandum of understanding with Able UK in July 2015 to explore the potential opportunities for using AMEP to support construction of our wind farm pipeline. However, following a detailed review we have concluded that the timescales for development of such a hub would preclude it providing support for any of our planned projects.”
The company said that it will now “fully support and engage with the industry approach” and that it remains “fully committed” to the Humber region, expecting to have invested £6bn in the area by 2019.
Able UK, the developer of the marine energy park, said it remained committed to the £450m project, which had been expected to create around 4,000 jobs and is due to become operational from 2018.
