(Updates throughout)
By Nina Chestney
LONDON, Jan 17 (Reuters) - Utility Iberdrola and
oil majors BP and Shell are among companies
offered seabed rights to develop offshore wind projects in the
first tender of its kind in over a decade, Crown Estate Scotland
said on Monday.
Global competition for offshore https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-windpower-analysis-idUSKBN2BU0R8
wind sites has intensified as governments and investors have
woken up to the urgency of reducing carbon emissions and oil
majors have bid aggressively for rights.
Crown Estate Scotland, which manages the Scottish seabed,
said that just under 700 million pounds ($957.88 million) will
be paid by the successful applicants in option fees and passed
to the devolved Scottish government for public spending.
Of 74 applications from developers seeking to build projects
across the 15 areas of available seabed, option agreements have
been made to companies including BP, SSE, Shell
New Energies, Iberdrola's Scottish Power,
TotalEnergies and Vattenfall.
The biggest winner was Scottish Power Renewables, owned by
Iberdrola, which has the go-ahead for projects totalling seven
gigawatts (GW).
They include a joint venture with Shell to develop the
world's first large-scale floating wind farms at two sites with
total capacity of 5 GW.
In total, the 17 winning projects will cover just over 7,000
square kilometres and produce nearly 25 GW, helping to provide
low-carbon power in line with a UK-wide goal to reduce emissions
to net zero by mid-century. One gigawatt equates to roughly two
coal-fired power plants and is enough to power 750,000 homes.
The projects include six fixed offshore wind, 10 for
floating wind and one mixed.
Simon Hodge, chief executive of Crown Estate Scotland, said
the variety and scale of the projects was "a clear sign that
Scotland is set to be a major hub for the further development of
this technology in the years to come".
Crown Estate Scotland said it only grants full seabed leases
when developers have all the necessary consents and planning
permissions from the Scottish government and other bodies.
But should any application not progress to signing a full
agreement, the next highest scoring application will instead be
offered an option.
A joint venture between BP and Germany's EnBW
were successful in bid for a 2.9 GW wind project which
BP previously said would result in 10 billion pounds of total
investment.
A joint venture between Macquarie’s Green Investment Group,
TotalEnergies (38.25%) and Scottish renewables developer RIDG
said it secured rights to develop a 2 GW offshore wind project
off the coast of Orkney, representing more than 4 billion pounds
of investment.
The world's largest developer of offshore wind, Orsted
, had submitted a total of five bids either alone or
through joint ventures but was only awarded one option agreement
for a 1 GW project together with partner Falck Renewables among
others.
($1 = 0.7312 pounds)
(Reporting by Nina Chestney; additional reporting by Christoph
Steitz, Stine Jacbonsen, Ron Bousso, Dominique Vidalon; Editing
by Kirsten Donovan, Emelia Sithole-Matarise and Barbara Lewis)
