Rebirth of England.

Chapter 664 Offshore Wind Power
"By the way, we are at home now, there is no need to be so restrained, change into... well, your usual home clothes. You are still wearing high heels, aren't you tired..."

Hearing Barron's words, Zhang Junning blushed slightly:

"I thought you were going out..."

When Zhang Junning changed her clothes - a pink casual outfit that looked different from her usual professional elite appearance, but a little cute - Barron took out a bottle of red wine, glanced at her, and asked:

"Would you like a drink?"

"I...can't drink much, so just have one drink."

"If you don't want to drink, don't force yourself. We are not in a superior-subordinate relationship now, so you can be more casual."

Seeing that Barron had a smile on his face and didn't seem to have any hidden meaning in his words, Zhang Junning breathed a sigh of relief:

"Have a drink, Your Highness."

He picked up a red wine glass, filled it a third of the way, and handed it to Zhang Junning. After she took it with both hands, Barron also poured himself a glass and said casually:

"I know that you Chinese people attach great importance to the Spring Festival. Not to mention that you don't have any opportunities to take a vacation to go home and visit your parents, you can't even go back for the Spring Festival. Do you miss home?"

"It's okay. After all, it's a job requirement. I've thought about all this before and I'm mentally prepared."

"I will go to Asia next month, and I will also stay in Hong Kong for a while. I can give you two days off and let you go home to visit..."

"Thank you, Your Highness..."

Zhang Junning hesitated for a moment and said:

"There's no need for me to go back specifically. I can ask my parents to come to Hong Kong to see me. It's very convenient to travel between the two places anyway."

Maybe it was really like Zhang Junning said, her alcohol tolerance was not very good. After drinking just one glass of red wine, her cheeks turned slightly red.

Of course, in the end, Barron did not take advantage of the "slightly tipsy" atmosphere to have any further conversation with her. After all, today he was just taking this opportunity to chat with his personal assistant outside of work.

This made Zhang Junning breathe a sigh of relief after returning to the bedroom.

To be honest, she was not completely ignorant of the relationship between her predecessor, Wang Wanting, and the British Duke, including their relationship outside of work.

After all, after becoming Barron's personal assistant, many trivial matters need to be done by her.

Therefore, after Wang Wanting left her current position, she gave birth to a child for Barron, and even her current work, many arrangements in between were completed by Zhang Junning.

She had also thought about whether one day she would...

Although she did not reject this result after putting herself in his shoes, at least for now, she felt that she was not ready for it...

……

“In fact, we have one of the best conditions for offshore wind power development in the world, and relying on these conditions and our efforts, we have now become a benchmark for the global offshore wind power industry…”

In the United Energy Group Building, Barron listened to a report from the British Power Distribution Company.

In fact, under Barron's instruction, United Energy Group has not only been involved in traditional fossil energy business, but is also expanding in the direction of renewable energy including wind power.

For example, they recently acquired the well-known wind turbine manufacturer Dewind, after which British power distribution companies began to get involved in offshore wind power projects.

In fact, the world's first wind turbine was created in England. In July 1887, in a Scottish village called Marykirk, electrical engineer James Brice built the world's first wind turbine in the yard of his holiday cottage, charging batteries to provide lighting power for the cottage. James Brice described his wind turbine in a paper published later:
"This wind turbine adopts a tripod design, with a 33-foot-long wind shaft and a 13-foot-long wind arm. There is a sail made of canvas at the end, which is connected to a Burqin generator through a rope and a flywheel."

Limited by the technical conditions at the time, wind power generation had no cost-effectiveness at all, so it did not receive much attention from society.

It was not until 1970 that Britain began to reassess the feasibility of industrial-scale wind power generation.

In 1991, the first commercial onshore wind farm in the UK was built in Delabole in southern England, installing 10 wind turbines with a single unit capacity of 400 kilowatts.

However, due to the increasing size of modern wind turbines, the 125-meter height limit for onshore wind power facilities in the UK (except Scotland) has technically restricted the development of onshore wind power in recent years.

Therefore, it was natural for the British to turn their eyes to the sea.

Britain is surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean on all sides, with a vast sea area and frequent strong winds. Its offshore wind energy resources account for about one-third of the total in Europe, making it the number one in Europe.

It is estimated that if the UK develops one-third of its sea areas with a water depth of 0-25 meters, the installed capacity of wind power can reach 4000 million kilowatts, which is fully sufficient to meet the country's electricity needs!
Of course, when offshore wind power first started, the problem Britain faced was that the cost was too high.

The British government's solution is to require electricity providers to purchase a portion of wind power at a specified price, otherwise they will have to pay a fine. This is the NFFO (Non Fossil Fuel Obligation) mechanism implemented since 1990.

In its early stages, the policy provided the UK's offshore wind industry with vital financial subsidies, allowing it to survive the high-cost initial stages.

Thanks to the NFFO mechanism, Blyth, the first offshore wind farm in the UK, was built in 2000, which is the third offshore wind farm in the world.

The Blyth offshore wind farm only installed two wind turbines with a single capacity of 2 MW, which were the largest offshore wind turbines in the world at that time.

However, there is another requirement for developing offshore wind power, which is to obtain royal permission...

Because according to the law, most of the waters within 12 nautical miles of the British coastline belong to "public property held by the Queen of England" and are managed by a semi-independent legal entity, the Crown Estate.

Therefore, offshore wind power in the UK, especially the initial development of projects in shallow offshore waters, must be approved by the Crown Estate.

In 1998, the British Wind Energy Association, now RenewableUK, with the consent of the British government, began negotiations with the Crown Estate and reached an agreement in 1999, whereby the latter issued 17 experimental project construction licenses, the main purpose of which was to accumulate experience in the construction and operation of offshore wind farms.

This is the "initial round" in the history of offshore wind power development in the UK. It has a high starting point and a total installed capacity of 120 million kilowatts.

After 2002, the NFFO mechanism was gradually replaced by the RO (Renewable Obligation) mechanism.

The latter is essentially an upgraded version of the former, increasing the proportion of renewable energy that UK electricity providers must purchase to 11.1%, and will increase further to 2015% in 15.4.

For every MWh of grid-connected electricity provided by a qualified electricity provider, one ROC (Renewable Obligation Certificate) will be issued.

By 2008, onshore and offshore wind power were differentiated, and power providers received double ROCs for every megawatt-hour of offshore wind power connected to the grid.

In 2003, relying on the RO mechanism framework, Britain granted 15 construction licenses in the second round of offshore wind power development, with a planned installed capacity of 720 million kilowatts.

In 2008, Britain's offshore wind power installed capacity surpassed Denmark, ranking first in the world.

In the same year, after summarizing the lessons learned from the first two rounds, the Crown Estate approved a large-scale third round of offshore wind power development plan with a planned installed capacity of 2500 million kilowatts.

Therefore, the British distribution company itself needs to purchase 11.1% of renewable energy electricity in accordance with regulations when distributing electricity in the UK. This is also the motivation for United Energy Group to get involved in offshore wind power generation.

Although the cost of offshore wind power generation is still higher than that of fossil energy and nuclear power generation at this time, the government has also provided corresponding subsidies for it, and the British distribution company itself needs to purchase a corresponding proportion of renewable energy power generation - after six years, this proportion will increase to 15.4%.

Barron also knows that after Chinese companies enter this field in the future, the cost of wind power generation will be greatly reduced. In addition, Britain itself has rich offshore wind resources, so it is very necessary to enter the entire field in advance.

(End of this chapter)