Overplanting in offshore wind power plants in different regulatory regimes

Offshore wind power’s journey towards being competitive with other generation technologies relies on technical innovation and maturation, but also on further optimisation of proven and mature solutions. Capacity optimisation or so-called overplanting is one example of optimisation, which is performed by installing a larger wind power capacity than stipulated in the connection agreement with transmission system operators (TSOs). By developing a discounted cash flow (DCF) model, the paper investigates how both regulatory regimes and geographic characteristics of dedicated offshore wind development areas affect the viability of overplanting. The analysis comprises hypothetical scenarios of the distinctive offshore wind markets of the United Kingdom and Denmark and thereby elucidates the key aspects influencing the value of overplanting. This work’s findings show that the UK regulatory framework results more favourable to overplanting. The results indicate that current conceivable offshore wind power plants in the UK can increase their economic value by around 30 mio AC when optimising their capacity setup. In Denmark, current regulations are not suitable for overplanting causing loss of value when optimising the capacity design of wind power plants.