Scotland moves closer to new offshore wind leasing

31 July 2019

A new pipeline of commercial-scale offshore wind farms came a step closer today, as Crown Estate Scotland made details of leasing available so that developers can start preparing project proposals.

The near-final documentation released in today’s pre-launch includes some of the proposed steps and processes which are currently close to completion.

Developers can now access detailed documents to help them prepare ahead of the final launch of the leasing. These are available upon request from today until 30 August 2019. Interested parties are invited to feedback any comments to enable Crown Estate Scotland to fine-tune the process.

Crown Estate Scotland – the public body that manages leasing of Scotland’s seabed – also confirmed that they remain on track to fully launch in October 2019. At this point, final documentation will be made available.

A full summary of today’s announcement can be found here.

It is important to note that the documents made available today will be finalised at the time of the October launch and therefore should not be treated as final documents.

John Robertson, Head of Energy & Infrastructure for Crown Estate Scotland said: “Today marks an important step towards an offshore wind leasing process which will attract investment to Scotland to help reduce climate change emissions and enable wider socio-economic benefits for communities.

“By providing this information now, we will enable developers to start their preparations so that they are in a position to submit suitable applications when the time comes.”

The final launch of ScotWind Leasing is currently scheduled for October 2019. The final timings are directly linked to the development of Marine Scotland’s Sectoral Marine Plan for Offshore Wind.

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