Crown Estate Details Round 5 Plans | Offshore Wind - Offshore WIND
Crown Estate Details Round 5 Plans | Offshore Wind
Crown Estate Details Round 5 Plans
The Crown Estate has revealed details of a new leasing round, known as Round 5, for three commercial-scale floating wind projects in the Celtic Sea.
Located off the coast of South Wales and South West England, the sites will have a combined capacity of up to 4.5 GW, enough to supply four million homes with renewable energy.
The new wind farms are expected to be the first phase of commercial development in the region, with the UK Government confirming as part of its Autumn Statement in November its intention to unlock space for up to a further 12 GW of capacity in the Celtic Sea.
New details about the Round 5 auction include upfront investment in important workstreams to de-risk the process for developers and accelerate the deployment of projects.
This includes a multi-million-pound programme of marine surveys to better understand the physical and environmental properties around the locations of the new wind farms, as well as carrying out a Plan-Level Habitats Regulations Assessment early on in the process.
An Information Memorandum published today, on 7th December, also includes details of a series of contractual commitments for developers to create positive social and environmental impacts, focused on skills and training, tackling inequalities in employment, environmental benefits, and working with local communities.
In addition, bidders will be required to demonstrate commitments for the timely access to the port infrastructure needed to develop their projects, the Crown Estate said.
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The organisation, which manages the seabed around England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, has commissioned new research, due to be published in the new year, to provide a view on how best to maximise the economic and social benefits arising from Round 5 and the longer-term sustainable development of the offshore wind industry.
The Crown Estate has also outlined its intention to bring forward a new pilot fund to help accelerate supply chain projects, with an initial focus on opportunities arising from Round 5 with further details expected to be set out in the first part of 2024.
“Today’s plans will build on the Government’s ambition to deploy up to 5GW of floating offshore wind by 2030. Together with The Crown Estate I look forward to bringing more capacity online, through our plans to see up to 16GW deployed in the Celtic Sea through the 2030s,” said Graham Stuart, UK Minister of State for Energy Security and Net Zero.
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Over the next decade, U.S. offshore wind power is expected to grow from a single 30-megawatt wind farm off Rhode Island to more than 2,000 MW of capacity along the Atlantic Seaboard. There are contracts for wind power off the coasts of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Maryland, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Virginia.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has estimated the United States has over 4,000 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind potential, enough to power the country four times over.
The growth in part being spurred by state solicitations, including in New York, where then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) set a commitment of 9,000 MW of offshore wind by 2035, and in Connecticut, where in June 2021, Gov. Ned Lamont (D) signed legislation authorizing the construction of 2,000 MW of offshore wind by 2030.
The offshore development is also being driven by an investment tax credit set to end in December 2019 and is equal to 12 percent of expenditures. U.S. Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Tom Carper (D-Del.) have introduced a bill to extend the tax credit for up to eight years.
The Interior Department has held eight competitive lease sales that resulted in 15 offshore wind leases over 1.7 million acres that has the potential for 21 GW of capacity. In February 2022, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management completed a bidding process that realized $4.37 billion for 488,000 acres across six lease areas in federal waters off New York and New Jersey.
Projects have also been proposed off the Southeast coast, off California and Hawaii, and for the Great Lakes.