Government gives green light for 8GW of new offshore wind projects

The owner of the UK’s seabed, The Crown Estate, has today announced that plans for 8GW of offshore wind capacity across six major UK offshore wind farm projects have been given the green light by the UK government.The Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) have entered into an Agreement for Lease with The Crown Estate for the potential offshore projects, paving the way for the development of the sites, which are expected to provide enough clean power for up to seven million homes.The projects include sites off the coast of Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, North West Wales, and Lancashire. EnBW and BP’s 1,500MW offshore projects in the Irish Sea and off the coast of North East Anglesey, RWE Renewables’ 1,500MW of projects to the north east of Scarborough, and Green Total Investment Group’s proposed 1,500MW project off the Humber Estuary have all been approved.The announcement is the latest milestone in The Crown Estate’s Offshore Wind Leasing Round 4 Plan. When it first announced the initiative in April, it said it hoped to generate at least 7GW of new offshore wind projects in the waters around England and Wales by the end of the decade and provide power for more than six million homes.If the plans approved today proceed as expected, then the agency will have exceeded its original targets by providing 8GW of power for seven million homes.In April, following the completion of a Habitats Regulations Assessment – an assessment of the potential impacts on the most valuable environmental habitats in the UK – The Crown Estate gave notice to the UK and Welsh Governments of its intent to proceed with the Offshore Wind Leasing Round 4 plan on the basis of a ‘derogation’ that can be deployed where a project could harm protected habitats, but there are imperative reasons of overriding public interest to proceed.Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng today agreed that The Crown Estate can proceed with the plan, while the Welsh Government has also not raised any objections to the notice.The news comes just days after the Crown Estate also announced plans to develop floating, as opposed to fixed, offshore wind farms in the Celtic Sea, which could bring up to 4GW of additional capacity.