Warren Buffett in UK wind bid

Investor Warren Buffett is considering making a £1 billion bet on
Britain’s green energy revolution.

The government wants to make Britain the world’s largest offshore
wind energy generator, but the plans require hundreds of miles of
undersea cables to bring the electricity ashore to the national
grid.

The network is expected to cost more than £12 billion and regulator
Ofgem has launched an auction for the rights to build and maintain it.

Under the first phase, investors have been invited to bid on the
connections for nine offshore farms that are built or planned,
including the London Array off the Kent coast.

Mid-American Energy, owned by Buffett, is among those through to
the qualification stage and is expected to bid on a 20-year deal
to build and maintain the networks.

Others include National Grid, Scottish and Southern Energy, RWE,
Norway’s Statkraft, Dong of Denmark, and infrastructure investors
Macquarie, Transmission Capital and IFM.

The auction is expected to raise £1.15 billion. Information
memoranda will be sent out the week after next by RBC Capital
Markets, which is running the auction. Two larger auctions
covering future networks will be launched after next summer’s
sales.