The winner will receive a guaranteed revenue stream for 20 years under the terms of their licence, Ofgem said.

The five shortlisted bidders are:

* Balfour Beatty Equitix Consortium (a consortium comprising Balfour Beatty Investments Ltd and Equitix Ltd)

* Dalmore Capital Limited (acting in its capacity as manager of the PPP Equity PIP LP)

* Diamond Transmission Partners (consortium comprising Mitsubishi Corporation and HICL Infrastructure Company Ltd)

* Mari Energy Transmission (consortium comprising Macquarie Corporate Holdings Pty Ltd and Frontier Power Ltd)

* Transmission Capital Partners (consortium comprising International Public Partnerships Ltd and Transmission Capital Partners Ltd Partnership)

Ofgem said it expects to announce details of the preferred bidder in April 2017.

Dong Energy began installing the first of the world's largest wind turbines, which are taller and wider than the London Eye, at its Burbo Bank extension this month.

Combined, the 32 turbines will create enough electricity to power around 230,000 homes.

The extension to the existing Burbo Bank wind farm, which comprises of 25 smaller 3.6 MW turbines, will likely be completed by the first half of 2017.

(Reporting by Susanna Twidale; editing by Jason Neely)

Stocks treated in this article : Balfour Beatty plc, Dong Energy A/S