Scotland’s government is looking forward to pocketing bidding fees of around £680 million from ScotWind, the nation’s first round of offshore plot leasing for a decade, and its first since control of awards was devolved to Holyrood.
Scotland’s biggest ever offshore auction attracted seventy-four applications for projects covering 7,000 square kilometres of coastal waters. Together all the projects are rated at just over 24.8GW; when all are commissioned, power calculated as meeting the needs of 23 million homes will result.
Established offshore giants Shell and BP, plus seasoned renewables developers SSE and Scottish Power, are among winners to develop the ventures on 25 year leases.
Besides permit fees going directly to fund Holyrood’s public spending, at least a billion pounds more is projected to benefit Scotland’s economy, spent on supply chain functions such as fabrication, installation, engineering and planning.
Simon Hodge, Chief Executive of Crown Estate Scotland, said: “Today’s results are a fantastic vote of confidence in Scotland’s ability to transform our energy sector.
“Just a couple of months after hosting COP26, we’ve now taken a major step towards powering our future economy with renewable electricity.
| Project | Lead applicant | Option Fees | Technology | Total capacity (MW) |
| 1 | BP Alternative Energy Investments | £85,900,000 | Fixed | 2,907 |
| 2 | SSE Renewables | £85,900,000 | Floating | 2,610 |
| 3 | Falck Renewables | £28,000,000 | Floating | 1,200 |
| 4 | Shell New Energies | £86,000,000 | Floating | 2,000 |
| 5 | Vattenfall | £20,000,000 | Floating | 798 |
| 6 | DEME | £18,700,000 | Fixed | 1,008 |
| 7 | DEME | £20,000,000 | Floating | 1,008 |
| 8 | Falck Renewables | £25,600,000 | Floating | 1,000 |
| 9 | Ocean Winds | £42,900,000 | Fixed | 1,000 |
| 10 | Falck Renewables | £13,400,000 | Floating | 500 |
| 11 | Scottish Power Renewables | £68,400,000 | Floating | 3,000 |
| 12 | BayWa | £33,000,000 | Floating | 960 |
| 13 | Offshore Wind Power | £65,700,000 | Fixed | 2,000 |
| 14 | Northland Power | £3,900,000 | Floating | 1,500 |
| 15 | Magnora | £10,300,000 | Mixed | 495 |
| 16 | Northland Power | £16,100,000 | Fixed | 840 |
| 17 | Scottish Power Renewables | £75,400,000 | Fixed | 2,000 |
| Totals | £699,200,000 | 24,826 |
More than half the successful ventures will feature floating turbines. Iberdrola-owned Scottish Power aims to develop two floating projects with Shell, a 3GW windfarm off the north-east coast of Scotland and another 2GW venture off the east coast. Scottish Power plans its own 2GW fixed offshore windfarm off the coast of Islay.
SSE Renewables has partnered with Japanese conglomerate Marubeni and Danish fund manager Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) to develop one of the world’s largest floating offshore windfarms off the east coast of Scotland.
Bernard Looney, the chief executive of BP, which won with a bid for a conventionally moored windfarm, said the company would build on its “proud 100-year history in Scotland” by developing its 2.9GW project 60km off the coast of Aberdeen.
The windfarm, to be build in partnership with the German energy company EnBW, will generate enough electricity to power the equivalent of more than 3m homes.
Scotwind’s zones are mapped here.
