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Crown Estate Scotland has revealed it received 74 applications for its ScotWind leasing round which closed to applications on Friday (16 July).
The corporation said it has now begun assessing the submissions and confirmed the timeline for the next steps in the process, with the first options agreements being awarded to successful applicants in January 2020.
It noted that full seabed leases will only be granted to developers once they have received all of the necessary consents and planning permissions from the Scottish government and other bodies.
Colin Palmer, director of marine for Crown Estate Scotland, said: “The high number of applications from developers shows just how much potential Scotland’s seas hold for the future expansion of offshore wind.
“There is now a huge amount of work to do in assessing every application thoroughly and fairly so that the strongest projects go through to the next stage in helping to power Scotland’s energy sector towards a net zero future.”
Commenting on the announcement, RenewableUK chief executive Dan McGrail said: “It’s great to see the sky-high volume of applications that ScotWind has attracted. This underlines our industry’s ability and ambition to scale-up to reach net zero.
“The next generation of Scottish offshore wind farms projects will bring billions in private investment, support thousands of jobs and create new supply chain opportunities. It will also ensure that we continue to be a world leader in floating wind and that we maximise our potential to export this innovative technology all over the world.”
A number of Europe’s biggest oil companies have submitted applications as part of consortia, including BP, Shell, Total Energies and Eni. Many of the proposals are for floating offshore windfarms.
ScotWind will award seabed rights for up to 10GW of offshore wind generation. Back in March, Crown Estate Scotland raised the maximum option fees by ten-fold to £100,000 per square kilometre in response to the high prices seen in the Crown Estate’s fourth offshore leasing round, which awarded seabed rights for 8GW of offshore wind.
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