The Crown Estate, which manages the seabed around Wales, England and Northern Ireland has published two reports outlining its vision for how the UK’s seabed can support the transition to clean energy, alongside the accelerated delivery of nature recovery.
The first, a Marine Delivery Routemap, hopes to create a holistic and long-term view of how the seabed can be used in future. The development of the document was one of the key recommendations published in last year’s independent report from Electricity Networks Commissioner Nick Winser.
The Routemap aims to:
- Provide visibility and certainty for developers across a wide range of sectors, helping boost market confidence and attract international investment.
- Identify new areas for biodiversity and nature restoration.
- Accelerate the delivery of offshore renewables, helping address current pinch-points such as consenting and grid connections.
- Support the economic development of prosperity for onshore communities by enabling a long-term view of the investment needed for things like skills, ports and supply chain.
A new generation of offshore wind
A second report, the Future of Offshore Wind, sets out The Crown Estate’s approach to support the accelerated delivery of clean energy infrastructure in the UK.
Earlier this year, The Crown Estate and Great British Energy announced a new partnership to utilise the strengths of both organisations to bring to market an additional 20-30GW of offshore wind leasing opportunity by 2030 – enough to power almost 20 million homes across the UK.
The Celtic Sea
Much of that new offshore wind capacity is expected to be in areas of the Celtic Sea, which lies off the coasts of South Wales and South West England.
The Crown Estate said 4-10GW of the 12GW spatial potential could be leased by 2030 and in operation from 2035 to 2040.
Marine Delivery routemap, the crown estate
To achieve the above, the report states 5-12% of the area identified as the ‘Celtic Sea Opportunity’ would need to be leased within the next 6 years.
The ‘Future of Offshore Wind’ report also sets out proposals to further de-risk the opportunity for developers and accelerate the deployment of new windfarms.
It acknowledges ‘that having a robust route to market is critical to successful project development’, and sets out a core aim of providing the industry and wider stakeholders with forward visibility of pipeline of future leasing rounds. The Crown Estate says this will enable early identification and efficient planning and resourcing, as well as drive investor confidence and unlock investment.
In addition, the report sets out further detail on how The Crown Estate could play a greater role in investing in enabling infrastructure such as ports and supply chain, de-risk deployments and speed up and streamline the consenting process.
Gus Jaspert, Managing Director, Marine at The Crown Estate, said: With increasing demands and pressures offshore, we need a forward plan to release the true potential of our seas. Our plans for a Marine Delivery Routemap mark an important step towards a more coordinated, long-term approach to managing the increasing demands off our coast in partnership with a range of industries and stakeholders.
In addition, our evolving approach to offshore wind development is designed to help remove some of the barriers to deployment of important new renewable energy and provide more certainty to investors. We look forward to engaging with our partners as we move these plans forward in the national interest.
The recommendations contained in the report will now form the basis of engagement with developers, wider industry and stakeholders to determine the best approach to move forward.