Crown Estate News

JERA Nex bp is acquiring EnBW’s stake in the Mona Offshore Wind Farm and has signed a lease agreement with The Crown Estate for the project, marking an important milestone for the company and for the UK’s offshore wind ambitions.This is a significant step towards final investment decision for the project which, once operational, could deliver up 1.5GW of clean energy to the UK. As Mona advances, the project has the potential to unlock new jobs, grow the UK supply chain, and bring economic benefits to coastal communities in Wales and across the UK.Amid current market conditions…

The Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult, in partnership with the National Shipbuilding Office and the Crown Estate, have appointed Cammell Laird shipyard to carry out a detailed analysis of the future market opportunity for U.K.-built ships in offshore wind. The work will help develop knowledge of how the U.K. can provide vessel manufacturing to support offshore wind, delivering jobs and economic investment to communities around the country.With over 850GW of offshore wind capacity expected to be installed globally by 2050…

Renewable energy company Source Galileo has signed a non-exclusive memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Portland Port, a commercial port on the South Coast of England, to jointly advance offshore wind development off Dorset coast in English Channel.Portland Port has a history of servicing the offshore wind sector and is in discussions with potential partners to enable and support the future construction and operation of offshore wind developments in the English Channel.With significant deep-water berths and quayside space…

Tugdock and Sarens have secured funding from Crown Estate’s Supply Chain Accelerator for a joint project to develop a heavy lift operations and maintenance (O&M) hub at ABP’s port of Port Talbot in Wales to support floating wind projects in the region.With key support from major industry players such as ABP and RWE, and other partnerships, the vision for the facility is to provide support for heavy lift equipment used in floating offshore wind projects in the Celtic Sea.Port Talbot's strategic location near the Celtic Sea makes it an optimal hub for supporting floating offshore wind projects…

TotalEnergies has launched a pilot project consisting of a floating wind turbine to supply renewable power to the Culzean offshore platform in the UK North Sea.Culzean is a high-pressure, high-temperature gas condensate field located in Block 22/25a in the East Central Graben area.The 3MW floating wind turbine will be located 2km west of the Culzean platform, 220km off the eastern coast of Scotland. This turbine, expected to be fully operational by end 2025, will supply around 20% of Culzean’s power requirement…

The Crown Estate, which manages the seabed around England, Wales and Northern Ireland, has set out further details of a new leasing round for three commercial-scale floating wind projects in the Celtic Sea off the coast of South Wales and South West England. The projects have the potential to deliver enough clean, renewable energy for more than four million homes.In one of the largest initiatives of its kind in the world, sites totalling 4.5GW of floating wind off the coast of South Wales and South West England will be leased across three agreed areas of the Celtic Sea.

The UK Offshore Wind and Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) Colocation Forum, set up to provide strategic coordination of colocation research and activity on the nation’s seabed, has commissioned two research projects. The projects are designed to inform the best approach to test and demonstrate the colocation of offshore wind and CCS activities in the future.To achieve the UK’s net zero targets, the UK Government is targeting the delivery of 50 gigawatts of offshore wind energy and the capture of 20-30 million tons of CO2 per year by 2030.

UK-based company Tugdock has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Salamander floating offshore wind farm to collaborate on innovation for floating offshore wind energy in Scotland.Tugdock, based in Cornwall, UK, has patented marine buoyancy technology that enables heavy marine structures to be built or assembled and loaded-out in ports with water depth or space restrictions.Salamander Offshore Wind is a joint venture development project between Simply Blue Group, Ørsted and Subsea7, which is developing a floiating wind farm to be located offshore from Peterhead in North-East Scotland.

After a bumper year for floating offshore wind farm tenders, the nascent industry is poised for explosive growth in the coming decade as countries strive to cut their carbon emissions. But it's unlikely to be all plain sailing. Rising costs and supply chain bottlenecks have hit some projects and without investment in infrastructure to launch the vast turbines and tow them to sea, hopes of harnessing the full power of the ocean's winds to hit climate targets could be dashed, industry experts say.

After being very much on the margins of the offshore wind industry, floating offshore wind now appears to be ready to hit the mainstream. With gigawatt scale developments already on the horizon, what will the infrastructure needed to build and support them look like? Over the past 12 months, the floating offshore wind sector appears to have had a major dose of adrenaline. While the largest development, to date, is the relatively small-scale 50MW Kincardine project off northeast Scotland (which will be outdone by the 88MW Tampen project in Norway later next year [2022])…

Kincardine floating offshore wind farm, located 15 km off the coast of Aberdeenshire, is now fully operational, Principle Power, a company that designed the 50MW wind farm's semi-submersible foundations, said Tuesday.The project, the world's largest of the type, consists of five Vestas V164-9.5 MW and one V80-2 MW turbine, each installed on WindFloat semi-submersible platforms designed by Principle Power. The Kincardine project was initiated in 2014 by Allan MacAskill and Lord Nicol Stephen, now both directors of Flotation Energy plc.

Renewable energy company RWE said Thursday it would create an offshore wind operations hub at Grimsby’s Royal Dock, on the UK’s east coast.The new ‘Grimsby Hub’ will expand the existing Triton Knoll offshore wind farm base and will be the home for RWE’s specialist team for major component exchanges and offshore repairs. As part of the move, RWE’s 1.4 gigawatt (GW) Sofia offshore wind farm will also locate its operations and maintenance activities to the new hub in the future.RWE expects the new facility will accommodate around 140 RWE employees…

Oil and gas services company SBM Offshore on Thursday reported a better than expected decline in core profit for the first half of 2021 as it looks to develop floating offshore wind projects.After reducing spending sharply in the face of a pandemic-induced demand collapse, major energy companies have profitted from surging oil and gas prices that have fed into investment budgets, buoying SBM's results.The Dutch company's first-half earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) were down 4% at $501 million, beating the $477 million expected by analysts in a company-provi

The world's largest offshore wind developer Orsted is concerned that Big Oil's eagerness to harness wind at sea could push up prices for seabed leases, making the technology less competitive, its chief executive told Reuters.European oil firms including Total, BP, Equinor and Shell have all outlined plans to speed up investments in renewables, including offshore wind, as they look to reduce their reliance on oil and gas to satisfy investors and governments which are demanding reductions in emissions."Short term we have seen it already…

Scottish regional development agency, Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE), has approved an investment of up to £8.3m in Scottish Government funding for an £18.9m project to develop the East Quay at Global Energy Group's Port of Nigg facility.The project is aimed at helping the Highlands and Islands economy benefit more from the growth in renewable energy development, as well as meeting the needs of GEG's existing clients.Once completed, the new facility is projected to bring…

Floating wind farm foundations specialist Ideol has signed a letter of intent with the Port of Cromarty Firth in the UK, that could create more than five hundred new Scottish construction jobs.The agreement would see the French-based company and its future local construction partners use the Port’s land and Firth berthing sites and cooperating towards further developing the facilities and infrastructure to establish a concrete hull serial manufacturing yard for incoming floating wind tenders.

A report commissioned by Crown Estate Scotland has found that Scotland has good technical capability to support offshore wind port functions in some, but not all locations and that investments in port capacity will be required to meet the needs of the growing offshore wind industry.Arup, technical consultants tasked with producing the report on the Scottish ports' role in the offshore wind space, said there was a significant risk that existing port capacity will be insufficient to support the offshore wind build-out rates required in Scottish waters to meet the UK-wide net-zero target.

Increased integration between offshore wind and other marine renewables and offshore oil and gas production can help deliver the UK’s net zero target through technologies such as carbon capture and storage (CCS), said a study.According to a new report from the Oil and Gas Authority (OGA), titled ‘UK Continental Shelf (UKCS) Energy Integration: Interim Findings’, innovative partnering between oil and gas, renewables, hydrogen and carbon capture can accelerate energy transition.The report discusses the first phase of the UKCS Energy Integration project which is led by the OGA, working with BEIS, The Crown Estate and Ofgem, considering options to help feed into a new strategic vision of the UKCS as an integrated energy basin.

The Crown Estate, which acts as manager of the seabed around England, Wales and Northern Ireland, has hosted a Round 4 bidders day to give offshore wind developers further insight into how it will run the 7GW seabed rights auction.More than 130 industry representatives attended a special ‘Bidders Information Day’ held in central London on Wednesday (09 October) on  The Crown Estate’s next round of offshore wind leasing (Round 4).The Bidders Information Day follows the launch of Leasing Round 4 last month and was hosted by The Crown Estate specifically for potential participants in Offshore Wind Leasing Round 4 and their advisors.Participants were provided with more detail about the tender process which will open later this month…

The Crown Estate has launched its Round 4 offshore wind leasing competition for the rights to develop at least 7GW of new capacity off England and Wales.The Offshore Wind Industry Council (OWIC) has hailed today’s launch as a major step forward.The Crown Estate, which acts as manager of the seabed around England, Wales and Northern Ireland, is making four broad areas of seabed available to the market, within which potential developers will have the opportunity to bid for project sites.Today’s launch follows over 18 months of engagement with the market and stakeholders through which The Crown Estate has developed and refined its proposals.Huub den Rooijen…

Spanish public multinational electric utility company Iberdrola has entered into an agreement with Green Investment Group (GIG), part of Macquarie Group, to sell a 40% share in the East Anglia One offshore wind farm.The group will continue to be the majority shareholder, with 60% of this offshore wind farm, which will be one of the largest in the world when it enters into operation.According to transaction terms and conditions the entire value of EAO amounts to £4.1 billion and when the wind farm is operational in 2020, Iberdrola will receive £1.63 billion (about €1.75 billion [1]) for the 40% stake. These funds will be allocated to…

The world's first offshore floating wind farm has started to deliver electricity to the Scottish grid, providing power to approximately 20,000 households. The 30MW Hywind Scotland wind farm, operated by Statoil in partnership with Masdar 25 kilometers offshore Peterhead in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, was officially opened today by First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon. “This marks an exciting development for renewable energy in Scotland,” First Minister Sturgeon said. “The learnings from Hywind Scotland will pave the way for new global market opportunities for floating offshore wind energy.

Bibby Offshore, a subsea services provider to the oil and gas industry, has appointed Dorothy Shepherd as general manager, renewables. Shepherd joins Bibby Offshore with more than 15 years’ experience in the energy industry. Having spent a significant time at The Crown Estate - a key player in supporting the delivery of energy supply for the U.K. - Shepherd brings with her a wealth of offshore renewables knowledge, including the delivery of new developments and supporting infrastructure. In her new role, Shepherd will be instrumental in the delivery of new business in the renewables sector.