The Crown Estate has launched its fifth Offshore Wind Leasing Round, which seeks to establish 4.5 GW of floating wind farms in the Celtic Sea off the coasts of South Wales and South West England.
This round is the first to be brought to market with an agreed plan for connecting the wind farms to the U.K.’s electricity grid. The Electricity Systems Operator has published its Celtic Sea network design recommendation.
Following the conclusion of the initial Pre-Qualification Questionnaire in June, the response from offshore wind developers to this stage demonstrated an interest in Round 5, with The Crown Estate able to move forward with a pool of prequalified bidders.
“The U.K.’s offshore wind industry is a global success story, supporting tens of thousands of jobs and contributing billions to the U.K economy,” says The Crown Estate’s Gus Jaspert.
“As the need for new offshore wind capacity increases, we have challenged ourselves to find ways to accelerate its deployment. This includes a multi-million pound program of technical and environmental surveys upfront, and our groundbreaking collaboration with the ESO, which means that bidders looking to develop floating wind farms in the Celtic Sea can progress their schemes in the knowledge that there is already a rigorously assessed recommendation for the network needed to connect them to the grid.”
The Crown Estate adds that up to 12 GW of further capacity is earmarked for floating offshore wind in the Celtic Sea.
