Britain’s energy system operator has launched a public consultation on a blueprint to connect a threefold expansion of offshore wind to the transmission grid.
The Holistic Network Design Implementation Plan covers 37 planned offshore wind farms and more than 50GW of capacity around the coastline, according to NESO.
NESO said the blueprint integrates earlier work and includes further environmental analysis of cabling routes to minimise marine impacts.
Director of strategic energy planning and chief engineer Julian Leslie said: “Expanding offshore wind is critical to achieving clean power, but we’re clear that the expansion of the transmission network infrastructure must consider the natural environment.”
“Our teams have worked tirelessly with a wide variety of environmental stakeholders to devise today’s blueprint for the network design, with a renewed focus on the marine environment,” he said.
The operator assessed the impact of 53 cables across 5km corridors for each site, examining geology, biodiversity and flora and fauna.
NESO said it is now up to project owners to advance detailed cable routes through the development consent process, including further environmental assessments.