Crown Estate Scotland has updated its plans, including potential timescales, for the next offshore wind leasing round – which will be known as ScotWind Leasing – for waters around the country.
The earliest potential date for the launch of the leasing is April next year, with the deadline for applications October 2019.
An offer of option agreements to successful applications would be made in January 2020, with clearing also starting that month.
Option agreements offered through clearing would be in June 2020, with the start of a second round of leasing in April 2021.
Crown Estate Scotland said the proposed timeline, although still to be finalised, signals the “organisation’s commitment to give industry and stakeholders more certainty and clarity”.
A further update on the leasing timeline will be given in January, it said.
The organsation added that in order to maintain flexibility the Scots Crown will allow applicants to select the site boundary and size and there will be no limit to the number of applications that can be made.
Areas will be identified through Marine Scotland’s ongoing and parallel Sectoral Marine Plan process. Crown Estate Scotland will not set a cap on the total amount of seabed awarded in the leasing.
“We will however indicate the broad level of new capacity that, on current information, we would see as being a sensible outcome of each cycle of leasing that we undertake,” it said.
Other areas updated include details on milestones, application evaluation, clearing and refinement, rent, multi-phase option agreements and clustering and separation.
Crown Estate Scotland senior development manager John Robertson said: “The discussion document generated a huge amount of very valuable feedback. We’ve carefully considered these responses and hope that this update gives certainty and clarity.
“There is clearly a huge appetite for this leasing to succeed in helping bring forward strong projects. Over the coming months we’ll continue to speak with those involved as we work towards publishing our leasing offer in 2019.”