A total of 74 applications were submitted, and 17 have now been offered option agreements which reserve the rights to specific areas of seabed. A total of just under £700m will be paid by the successful applicants in option fees and passed to the Scottish government for public spending.
The area of seabed covered by the projects is just over 7,000km2. A maximum of 8,600km2 was made available through the Scottish government’s Sectoral Marine Plan.
Crown Estate Scotland said that initial indications suggest a multi-billion pound supply chain investment in Scotland, with chief executive Simon Hodge describing the results as a ‘fantastic vote of confidence’ in Scotland’s ability to transform its energy sector and power its future economy with renewable electricity.
Winning applicants include BP Alternative Energy Investments, SSE Renewables, Shell New Energies, Falck Renewables, DEME and ScottishPower Renewables among others.
SSE Renewables will work with Japanese conglomerate Marubeni Corporation and Danish fund management company Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners to develop one of the world’s largest floating offshore wind farms off Scotland’s east coast.
The project has won rights to 859km2 of seabed, near to the existing 1.1GW Seagreen offshore wind farm project currently in construction by SSE Renewables as well as its planned 4.1GW Berwick Bank super-project in development.
With average water depths of 72m, the site will be suitable to deliver up to 2.6GW of new installed capacity, capable of powering almost 4.3 million Scottish homes.
Another major project to be awarded a lease option is bp and EnBW’s ‘Morven’ project, to be located around 60km off the coast of Aberdeen. The 859km2 lease is in an advantaged area, bp said, allowing the partners to develop it as a fixed-bottom offshore wind project with a total generating capacity of around 2.9GW.
The bid’s success is expected to unlock numerous investments across the country as part of bp's integrated energy approach.
“Our plans go much further than just the turbines offshore,” said Bernard Looney, bp chief executive. “They see us investing in projects and in people — from EV charging to green hydrogen — aligned with Scotland’s energy transition plans.”
A full list of winning projects can be found here.
Nanogenerator consumes CO2 to generate electricity
Whoopee, they've solved how to keep a light on but not a lot else.