The Crown Estate has refined plans for its up to 7GW Round 4 offshore wind leasing scheme for the UK with the launch not taking place until after the summer this year.
A new tender requirement will be introduced to ensure that projects are awarded across a minimum of three seabed regions in order to help facilitate greater geographic diversity, the Crown said.
A refinement has also been made to the number of project bids per bidder that will provide an option to bid for up to five variations of site boundaries, anchored at each of five locations, totalling a maximum of 25 possible site options.
The lease terms will also be increased to 60 years from 50 years, which is sufficient for two project cycles, the Crown said.
It is also exploring alternative options for the commercial assessment phase at invitation to tender in order to introduce greater transparency for bidders and help inform decisions on project location and option fee bid price.
The Crown said it will share a further market update once it has completed the work required to develop and stress test this new element of the tender design.
An update is planned before the summer break, it said.
Ongoing stakeholder engagement will also continue in parallel with this work as part of the plan-level Habitats Regulations Assessments on 2017 Extensions and 2018/19 marine aggregates licencing, the seabed landlord added.
The Crown Estate business development manager Jonny Boston said: “These latest refinements to Round 4 come as a direct result of listening closely to the hugely valuable feedback we’ve received, supporting our ongoing work to meet the needs of an ambitious wind energy market, while balancing a wide range of other interests in the marine environment.
“While the additional work we are committing to at this stage requires us to revise our timescales for the launch of Round 4, we are confident that developers and stakeholders will value the time we are investing now to address their feedback, ensuring our final designs offer a robust and attractive proposition, supporting the continued growth of the UK’s world leading offshore wind sector.”
The update was presented to stakeholders via a webinar, which will be available on The Crown Estate website soon.
The update also includes clarification pre-qualification requirements and project shape/ density requirements.