Permits Sought for Giant Scottish Floating Offshore Windfarm

Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--Planned floating offshore windfarms in U.K. waters continue to grow in scope and number as Buchan Offshore Wind (Edinburgh, Scotland) joins the race to build the first 1-gigawatt (GW) project.

The company has submitted its offshore consent applications to Scotland's government for a proposed floating offshore windfarm located 75 kilometers (km) to the northeast of Fraserburgh on the Aberdeenshire coast. It has already secured the seabed development rights from Crown Estate Scotland as part of the ScotWind leasing process in 2022. The project would boast up to 70 turbines from floating offshore turbine developer and joint venture partner BW Ideol (La Ciotat, France) and be capable of generating enough power for more than 1 million homes. It is expected to cost around £500 million (US$) to develop. Later this year the developer will submit a planning application for onshore works to Aberdeenshire Council, covering the project's underground cable route and connection to the existing transmission network at Peterhead substation.

Project Director Clare Lavelle said: "Our vision is to develop a world-leading floating offshore windfarm that will deliver large-scale manufacturing in Scotland, support thousands of new jobs, and drive progress towards the U.K.'s and Scotland's offshore wind targets. We are committed to manufacturing our floating substructures in Scotland, which would drive a significant proportion of the project's positive economic impacts. Over the past three years, the project team has hosted nine public events, engaging with residents across Aberdeenshire and the Buchan coast, as well as meeting with businesses and organisations across the region. These events have provided vital opportunities for local people to contribute to the project's development, in order to reflect regional priorities and deliver long-term social and environmental benefits."

The project will use BW Ideol's Damping Pool floating substructure for the project, and the company has confirmed that it is "working actively" to establish a manufacturing centre at the Ardersier Energy Transition Facility being developed at the former oil and gas fabrication yard on the Moray Firth.

Several of the existing floating offshore windfarms are modest in terms of capacity, with many of the first being used as pilots to test floating offshore technologies. Scotland is already home to the world's first floating offshore windfarm, Hywind Scotland, which was commissioned by developer Equinor (NYSE:EQNR) (Stavanger, Norway) in 2017 with a capacity of 30 megawatts (MW), capable of powering roughly 35,000 homes. The U.K.'s largest is the 50-MW Kincardine floating offshore windfarm, located 15 km off the coast of Aberdeen in waters ranging from 60 meters to 80 meters deep. The world's largest floating operation is Equinor's sister project, Hywind Tampen, with a capacity of 94.6 MW. It is the world's first floating windfarm built specifically to power offshore oil and gas installations, supplying electricity to Equinor's Snorre and Gullfaks oil and gas fields in the Norwegian North Sea.

In recent years, the size of proposed projects has grown dramatically in both capacity and investment opportunities. Industrial Info is tracking 25 floating offshore windfarm projects in the U.K. worth more than US$80 billion in investment. Subscribers to Industrial Info's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) Project Database can click here for the reports. The vast majority of the projects are destined for the North Sea around Scotland with many exceeding 1 GW in size. The largest planned project is MarramWind, which is also located off Fraserhead like Buchan Offshore Wind, but which will be three times larger at 3 GW with the capability of supplying 3.5 million homes with power. It is being developed jointly by ScottishPower and Shell plc (London, England).

Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is the leading provider of industrial market intelligence. Since 1983, IIR has provided comprehensive research, news and analysis on the industrial process, manufacturing and energy related industries. IIR's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) helps companies identify and pursue trends across multiple markets with access to real, qualified and validated plant and project opportunities. Across the world, IIR is tracking over 200,000 current and future projects worth $17.8 Trillion (USD).