29 July 2021
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3 min read
Credit: Simply Blue Energy
Crown Estate announces 300MW of new projects have progressed to final stage of leasing assessment
The Crown Estate has progressed three floating wind projects forward to the next stage of assessment in its leasing process, marking another major step forward in scaling up the nascent renewable power technology.
Together the projects - which are earmarked for sites in the Celtic Sea off the coasts of Devon, Cornwall and Wales - amount to a potential 300MW of power capacity from wind turbines which, rather than being fixed to the seabed, effectively float on the water, enabling their installation further out in deeper seas where winds are higher.
The Crown Estate announced on Tuesday that each project has now met initial test and demonstration criteria as part of its wind leasing opportunity, which is one of the world's largest offshore leasing programmes geared towards supporting the development of innovative energy technologies.
The projects must now undertake environmental assessments - also known as the Habitats Regulation Assessment (HRA) - which marks the final phase of the process before full seabed leasing rights can be granted. If leasing rights are awarded this year, the projects would become operational at the end of the decade.
"Innovative projects like these represent a vital step towards the UK's ambitions to develop floating wind at a commercial scale," said Huub den Rooijen, managing director of The Crown Estate's marine portfolio. "Not only do they help support the commercialisation of the market while bringing down costs, they are key to testing new designs, materials and construction methods while creating new opportunities for the regional supply chain. This sort of new technology will have an important role to play as the UK transitions to net zero, helping unlock new energy capacity, while potentially helping to reduce the impact on the marine environment."
Should the projects secure full leasing rights, the Crown Estate said they would help support the UK government's target to deliver 1GW of floating wind capacity by 2030. That comes in addition to The Crown Estate's other floating wind development projects around the UK, including Scotwind, TwinHub, WaveHub and Erebus, it said.
Overall, these potential new projects could contribute 400MW of floating wind capacity, a significant increase on the 80MW of floating wind power which currently operates Scottish waters leased by The Crown Estate, it said.
The Celtic Sea projects to progress to the next state of leasing announced this week are run by Offshore Wind Limited, a partnership between Cobra Instalaciones y Servicios, S.A. and Flotation Energy plc, and Floventis Energy Limited, a partnership between SBM Offshore and Cierco Ltd.
Barnaby Wharton, director of future electricity systems at clean energy trade body RenewableUK, said the new projects had "the potential to build on the success of our world-leading floating wind farms already generating in Scottish waters".
"They can stimulate further investment in the UK supply chain for floating wind, manufacturing state-of-the-art technology not only for projects here but also for the global market which is expected to be worth at least £230m a year by 2031 to UK exporters," he said. "And the more floating wind we install in British waters, the cheaper it will become; this innovative technology can repeat the success of fixed-foundation offshore wind by becoming subsidy-free within a decade."
