Offshore Wind
The offshore wind industry will play a central role in eliminating carbon from the power sector globally, adding more renewable energy to the grid. We are exploring how our expertise in subsea electricity interconnectors and electricity transmission, as well as our long-standing local experience in the UK and US, can support offshore wind efforts in both countries to help advance the clean energy transition.
Partnership with RWE
In May 2021, National Grid announced the signing of a joint venture partnership with RWE Renewables, one of the world’s leading renewable energy companies, to jointly develop offshore wind projects in the Northeast U.S. Through the partnership, the companies will be working together to explore opportunities in the regional offshore wind market, including the intention to jointly bid in the upcoming New York Bight seabed lease auction.
Watch the videoRWE’s Rødsand 2 offshore wind farm in the Baltic Sea. Image credit: RWE.
Both companies share a common goal of enabling the clean energy future, and offshore wind will be critical for the U.S., particularly in the Northeast, to reduce emissions, meet climate goals and create local jobs. This partnership brings together two leading energy companies to help drive forward the emerging offshore wind industry in the U.S. and help bring critical economic development to communities across the Northeast.
National Grid and RWE bring complementary capabilities and expertise to their partnership. National Grid brings its local expertise in the Northeast along with its experience developing large-scale infrastructure projects, including industry-leading subsea cable capabilities from its portfolio of interconnectors that facilitate the transfer of renewable energy between the UK and Europe.
RWE brings its wealth of experience in global offshore wind project development across the entire value chain, from project conception to construction and operation. The unparalleled experience the company has earned over the last 20 years has resulted in 20 successful projects, ranking RWE in the top tier of the global offshore wind market.
Revolution Wind
Ørsted and Eversource are developing 704 MW of offshore wind capacity for residents of Rhode Island and Connecticut with their Revolution Wind project. We will be working with the joint venture to connect its Revolution Wind project to the onshore transmission system, facilitating additional clean energy to the region from offshore wind.
WindEurope
National Grid Ventures is a member of WindEurope, given our expertise with subsea electricity interconnectors enabling the sharing of renewable energy between the UK and Europe. We see a role for us to enable the transmission infrastructure needed to connect and deliver offshore wind.
Further reading
What is offshore wind?
Energy taken from the force of the winds out at sea is transformed into electricity and supplied into the network, but how?
Onshore vs offshore wind energy: what's the difference?
Technology that wind turbines use to generate electricity is essentially the same. So how do they differ?
Multi-Purpose Interconnectors
National Grid’s subsea interconnectors already provide a way to share electricity between countries safely and reliably. But what if they could do much more than that?
The future of offshore energy
Find out more about the advances being made in offshore energy and how we'll be using it to generate much more clean energy for a net zero future.