Full seabed leases are granted at a later stage once applicants have the necessary consents from regulators, such as Marine Scotland, and have secured grid connections and financing.
The addition of three more ScotWind projects takes to 20 the total number of ScotWind projects which now have option agreements confirmed. Together these total up to 27.6 GW of clean energy. A total of £56 million in option fees will be paid by the three successful applicants taking the total figure for ScotWind option fees for the 20 projects to £755 million. Once operating, projects will pay Crown Estate Scotland multi-million pound annual payments. These funds will be passed to Scottish Government for public spending.
A key part of ScotWind is focusing on supply chain, from the outset, to develop the Scottish projects. In a world first, Crown Estate Scotland mandated that applicants must outline supply chain commitments as part of their application for an option agreement, with commitments then updated throughout development as project specifics such as timing and technology become clearer. Latest figures, taking into account all 20 projects, now show initial Scottish commitments total £28.8 billion, indicating an average of £1.4 billion investment in Scotland per project built, and £1 billion investment in Scotland per gigawatt of capacity built.
“Today’s confirmation of three more ScotWind agreements is extremely positive news” said Colin Maciver, Head of Offshore Wind Development for Crown Estate Scotland. “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.
The addition of these three agreements concludes the ScotWind leasing round.
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