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Crown Estate Scotland inks agreements with ScotWind clearing projects

By: Tom Russell 02/11/2022 Crown Estate Scotland

General Windfarms

Crown Estate Scotland has confirmed that all three successful ScotWind Clearing applicants now have seabed option agreements in place meaning that their projects can move into the development stage.

Full seabed leases are granted at a later stage once applicants have the necessary consents from regulators, such as Marine Scotland, and have secured grid connections and financing.

The addition of three more ScotWind projects takes to 20 the total number of ScotWind projects which now have option agreements confirmed. Together these total up to 27.6GW of energy. A total of £56m in option fees will be paid by the three successful applicants taking the total figure for ScotWind option fees for the 20 projects to £755m. Once operating, projects will pay Crown Estate Scotland multi-million pound annual payments. These funds will be passed to Scottish Government for public spending.

Crown Estate Scotland mandated that applicants must outline supply chain commitments as part of their application for an option agreement, with commitments then updated throughout development as project specifics such as timing and technology become clearer. Latest figures, taking into account all 20 projects, now show initial Scottish commitments total £28.8bn, indicating an average of £1.4bn investment in Scotland per project built, and £1bn investment in Scotland per gigawatt of capacity built.
Colin Maciver, Head of Offshore Wind Development for Crown Estate Scotland, said, “Today’s confirmation of three more ScotWind agreements is extremely positive news. These projects will further boost delivery of clean offshore energy that is central to Scotland’s efforts to tackle the climate emergency, secure the UK’s energy supply, and generate billions of pounds of investment in Scotland. We look forward to working with all applicants in the years to come.”

This is the first stage of a process which these projects will go through, as they evolve through planning, consenting, and financing stages. Responsibility for these next steps does not sit with Crown Estate Scotland, and projects will only progress to a full seabed lease once all these various planning stages have been completed.

The addition of these three agreements concludes the ScotWind leasing round.

The announcement came as Mainstream Renewable Power (Mainstream) and Ocean Winds revealed they signed the seabed lease agreement with Crown Estate Scotland to the value of £36 million for the development of a 1.8 GW floating offshore wind farm off the Shetland Islands in Scotland. Mainstream and Ocean Winds were appointed preferred bidder by Crown Estate Scotland during the ScotWind clearing process in August 2022.

Ocean Winds also saw success with another option agreement of £10 million for a 500 MW site, also east of Shetland, for floating development.

ESB Asset Development secured an option agreement of £10 million for a 500 MW site which is expected to host floating turbines.

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Crown Estate Scotland inks agreements with ScotWind clearing projects

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