Costain Alliance Offers Renewable Power Solution


 

TIDMCOST 
 
 
Costain Group PLC 
20 August 2010 
 
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Costain Group PLC 
 ("Costain" or "the Company") 
Costain Alliance Offers Renewable Power Solution 
As the Government increases its efforts to curb carbon emissions from the power 
generation sector, Costain is aiming to win a stake in the renewable energy 
market. 
 
Offshore wind farms offer the prospect of more predictable and consistent 
weather conditions than their onshore counterparts, together with fewer problems 
in gaining planning permission. However, constructing them in an offshore 
environment is more technically challenging. 
 
Costain has teamed up with Hochtief and Arup in a new alliance. This will seek 
to design and build the offshore installations that are anticipated to spring up 
over the next decade. 
 
These installations will, in a large proportion of the zones, require large 
concrete structures, known as gravity base foundations, sitting on the seabed 
and into which the wind turbines can be attached. 
 
This is where Costain comes in, explains the Director in charge of the Group's 
efforts in the sector, Colin Duff. 
 
Bidding concluded this year between various developers and energy providers and 
the Crown Estates (which owns the rights to the seabed around the UK) for 'Round 
3' of the licences that will allow companies access to the seabed to install the 
wind turbines. 
 
 "If everybody develops the sites they say they're going 
to - and that depends on how far they take Round 3, what happens to other forms 
of energy and our use of energy - the offshore market could be worth 
GBP200billion by 2020. The foundation element of that is GBP50 billion," says 
Duff. 
 
A gravity base foundation would be a flask-shaped concrete structure 30-40 
metres in diameter, 60-70 metres tall and weighing around 6,000 tonnes. 
 
Winning contracts "will come down to having an affordable, deliverable 
solution," says Duff. "The most efficient way of achieving this is by setting up 
a manufacturing facility to mass produce the gravity base foundations." 
 
To meet the aspirations of the government in terms of their targets for 
renewable energy production - of which offshore wind is a major part - the 
facility will have to be capable of producing a unit every two to three days 
 
The consortium is currently assessing suitable sites for port facilities to 
produce the foundations. They would be constructed by a slipforming process 
operating round the clock. 
 
A renewable energy conference in Liverpool at the end of June saw the consortium 
making a presentation and taking a stand in order to further develop its 
relationships with its potential customers involved in Rounds 2 and 3 of the 
offshore bidding process. In July the consortium, along with Martin Land, Power 
Sector Director, gave a presentation at a Costain-sponsored Renewables event in 
London, emphasising Costain's capability to deliver multi-discipline projects 
for power generation infrastructure. 
 
20 August 2010 
Enquiries: 
 
+---------------------------+------------------------+ 
| Costain Group PLC         |      Tel: 01628 842444 | 
+---------------------------+------------------------+ 
| Graham Read,              |                        | 
| Communications Director   |                        | 
|                           |                        | 
+---------------------------+------------------------+ 
| College Hill              |     Tel: 020 7457 2020 | 
+---------------------------+------------------------+ 
| Mark Garraway             |                        | 
+---------------------------+------------------------+ 
| Adam Aljewicz             |                        | 
+---------------------------+------------------------+ 
 
Notes to Editors 
 
Costain is one of the UK's leading construction and engineering companies and is 
currently at the forefront of the drive to develop and improve the nation's 
infrastructure. 
 
In its targeted sectors, Costain is playing a major role in the provision of new 
facilities for a range of sectors ranging from waste to transport. The Company's 
strategy is entitled 'Choosing Costain'  and everyone in the organisation is 
committed to making Costain the automatic choice in terms of both business and 
technical excellence. 
 
Costain's origins date back to 1865. Since then the Company has featured in some 
of the world's major construction projects including the Channel Tunnel. Now the 
Company focuses on specific sectors within three divisions: Infrastructure - 
Highways, Rail, Airports and Nuclear sectors; Environment - Water, Waste, Marine 
and Education sectors; Energy & Process - Nuclear Process, Power and 
Hydrocarbons & Chemicals sectors. 
 
Costain has a strong order book. Significant contract awards include the GBP397 
million contract (design, construction and commissioning of 44 different 
facilities) for the Greater Manchester Waste Disposal Authority. In addition, 
Costain has won (as part of the 4D consortium) a GBP225 million contract with 
Southern Water to manage the design and build of a new wastewater treatment 
works in the Brighton and Hove area. Costain is also heavily involved in the 
Nuclear sector and in the Summer 2009 announced the award of a GBP297 million 
contract for full Engineering, Procurement, Construction and Inactive 
Commissioning of the Evaporator D project at Sellafield. 
 
The Company's status was underlined at the Construction News 2009 Quality Awards 
when Costain won the Supreme Award for best overall performance. More recently, 
the Company was named 'Contractor of the Decade' by New Civil Engineer at the 
magazine's annual awards in London in August 2010. 
 
For further information please visit : http://www.costain.com/ 
 
 
 
This information is provided by RNS 
            The company news service from the London Stock Exchange 
   END 
 
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