The Crown Estate is to design and deliver a new leasing opportunity for early commercial-scale floating wind projects in the Celtic Sea.
The leasing process will focus on projects of circa 300MW in scale – up to three times larger than any rights previously awarded to floating wind in the UK.
It said this demonstrates a new frontier for the sector and an important step towards the Government’s ambition to deliver 1GW of floating wind by 2030.
The news follows The Crown Estate’s invitation to the market, in December 2020, to come forward with views on how best to accelerate the development of floating wind in the UK.
This included welcoming feedback on the potential scale and location of future rights and the best route to help build the related supply chain.
Since then, The Crown Estate has received and reviewed input from over 30 interested market participants across industry and other key stakeholder groups.
Feedback showed there is strong interest in new floating wind rights, from a capable and motivated pool of potential market participants
It also demonstrated that the market is confident that current floating wind technology will allow the sector to move to the next phase and deploy early commercial scale projects
Furthermore, there is appetite to now develop projects that are around 300MW in size, moving the sector onto an “early commercial” phase, with a desire for a pipeline of opportunities that helps to continue to build market confidence.
Overall, The Crown Estate reported strong interest in project locations in the Celtic Sea – the waters in the region around the South Wales coast and the South West peninsular.
The Crown Estate expects to provide further details on leasing design in the coming months.
This leasing process builds on The Crown Estate’s work to support the development of floating wind technology through its test and demonstration opportunity.
Last year it awarded rights to developers Blue Gem Wind, for the proposed 96MW Erebus floating wind project, in the Welsh waters of the Celtic Sea.
Mike Scott, project managing director at Blue Gem Wind, said, “We welcome the news that the Crown Estate is launching a leasing process for the Celtic Sea to deliver early-commercial projects up to 300MW.
“We believe that a stepping stone approach to the development of floating wind in the Celtic Sea in the 2020’s brings clear benefits.
“Starting with demonstration and early commercial projects, increasing in size, will help to capture the highest local supply chain content for the large scale projects in the 2030s.”
The Crown Estate will also explore how best to support pre-commercial, smaller projects that will continue to be an important part of developing new technologies for a range of seabed conditions and locations.
It intends to set out our approach alongside its broader leasing process in the coming months.
The Crown Estate is also exploring ways in which it can promote more collaboration across the sector to accelerate development and maximise its economic and social value – through supply chain and other benefits, especially to those communities local to projects.
Director of The Crown Estate’s Energy minerals and infrastructure portfolio Huub den Rooijen said: “Floating offshore wind is the next frontier of the UK’s clean energy ambitions, offering an exciting opportunity to deliver more green energy, in new areas offshore.
“As a technology that will be important for the UK’s pathway to net zero, we are focused on helping to unlock its potential in a way that is sensitive to our precious marine habitats, considers interactions with other uses of the sea, and is compatible with other critical processes such as the tender for Leasing Round 4.
“Today’s announcement is an important step in providing the market the confidence it needs to plan and invest, bringing with it huge opportunities for jobs and the supply chain.”
RenewableUK’s head of policy and regulation Rebecca Williams said: “The Crown Estate is creating an exciting opportunity for renewable energy developers in the Celtic Sea which will help the UK to maintain its global lead in floating wind.
“There is a huge appetite within the industry to deploy this innovative technology.
“Floating wind is essential for the UK to reach its legally-binding net zero emissions target by 2050 – we can’t get there without it.”