Energy majors Shell and ScottishPower have secured joint offers for the seabed rights to develop what the partners describe as “two of the world’s first large-scale floating offshore wind farms in UK waters”.
The companies’ plans were approved by Crown Estate Scotland, as part of its ScotWind leasing round. The wind farms will be delivered through two joint ventures. The first, named MarramWind, will focus on a site located 75km off Scotland’s north-east coast, in water depths averaging 100m, which is expected to generate 3GW. The second, CampionWind, will be located 100km from Scotland’s east coast, in water depths averaging 77m, and will deliver up to 2GW of renewable energy. Together, Shell estimates, the 5GW generated by the farms could power the equivalent of 6 million homes in Scotland – not a bad tally, given there are just over 2.37 million households in the country at last count.
ScottishPower CEO Keith Anderson comments: “Offshore wind is set to become the backbone of the UK’s energy mix, and will do the heavy lifting as we ramp up the production of clean electricity on the journey to ‘net zero’. Our ScotWind projects will make the best use of our fantastic natural resources to help power the UK’s transition from fossil fuels to renewables and a better future, quicker.” Both MarramWind and CampionWind ventures have now commenced initial development planning.
Floating offshore wind farms are being mooted as the most viable means of establishing wind turbines in waters with depths that prohibit the use of fixed foundations. Shell estimates that nearly 80% of Europe’s offshore wind cache is “situated in waters too deep for conventional, bottom-fixed wind turbines”.
