Three more projects have been awarded seabed lease options by Crown Estate Scotland, bring to 20 the number of projects that have had option agreements confirmed under the ScotWind round. Together could bring forward capacity totalling 27.6GW. The additional projects will pay £56 million in option fees, bringing the total for ScotWind to £755 million. Once operating, projects will pay Crown Estate Scotland multi-million pound annual payments.
Crown Estate Scotland mandated that applicants must outline supply chain commitments as part of their application for an option agreement, with commitments updated as project specifics such as timing and technology become clearer. The organisation says initial Scottish commitments total £28.8 billion, indicating an average of £1.4 billion investment in Scotland per project.
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 an extensive 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.
See details of all 20 projects here