Ofgem has completed the second round of tendering for its Offshore Transmission Owner (OTO) regime.

It has granted West of Duddon Sands (WoDS) Transmission a licence to own and operate the £269m transmission link to the West of Duddon Sands offshore wind farm.

The decision now brings the total new transmission investment delivered by the OFTO regime to date to over £2.5bn, of which nearly £1bn has been delivered through the capital markets.

WoDS has became the fourth and final offshore transmission project to reach financial close and licence grant in tender round two of the regime.

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The second tender round has delivered £1.4bn of transmission assets, connecting 1.9GW of offshore wind.

The WoDS offshore wind farm comprises of 108 turbines with an installed capacity of 289MW and is located in the East Irish Sea.

Dermot Nolan, Ofgem chief executive, said: "With the licence granted for West of Duddon Sands, the OFTO regime has attracted over £2.5 billion of new investment into the UK transmission sector to date.

"The regulatory frameworks devised by Ofgem are key to attracting the new investment needed to extend grid networks to connect renewable energy projects, and to enable planned interconnectors with European partners to be built. This model is helping drive down costs for consumers."

Ofgem and the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) launched the offshore transmission regime in 2009.

(LM)