The UK government has launched a new £100m scheme to provide grant payments to offshore energy projects to develop coordinated options for offshore transmission infrastructure.
The Offshore Coordination Support Scheme, which is being run by the Department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy, will look to award developers with grants totalling up to £50m in each of the financial years of between 2023 and 2024 and between 2024 and 2025.
It is currently open for applications until 28 February 2023, with successful candidates expected to be announced in June later that year.
Applications for the scheme are required to be made in consortia with more than one project and should comprise all the companies involved in developing each project.
A consortium could therefore be formed of multiple developers looking to co-ordinate an offshore link for two offshore wind farms.
Other offshore transmission infrastructure such as interconnectors and bootstraps will also be considered as individual projects.
The award of the grants is discretionary and will be decided by BEIS ministers following a review of each application.
The successful applicants will be awarded a portion of the £50m grant for each financial year, with BEIS expecting to award multiple applications with the total grant amount.