The Crown Estate Invests in 25 GW of Offshore Wind Power (UK)

[jpak]

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/story?id=52749

The Crown Estate, which controls the seabed in UK territorial waters, has launched round three of its leasing program and is to share development risks for prospective offshore wind projects. With the proposals to provide up to 25 gigawatts (GW) of new capacity installed by 2020, The Crown Estate is planning to invest up to 50% of the cost of obtaining planning consents, including enabling projects to address generic, zone-wide environmental concerns, consenting bottlenecks, supply chain constraints and connection of new wind farms to the national grid.

This latest addition follows some 8 GW of capacity that could emerge from the first two rounds of seabed leases. The program for round three is expected to accelerate the development of offshore windfarms, with The Crown Estate inviting potential partners to bid for development zones shortly, which will grant them exclusive development rights.

The Crown Estate is not planning to take any role in the ownership or operation of the projects and partner companies will remain wholly responsible for construction and operation of the windfarms. The specified zones are to be identified through both spatial planning by The Crown Estate and the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) being undertaken by the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR). The Crown Estate has initially identified 11 zones that it expects to allocate during the summer of next year before identifying specific sites within the zones.

By 2013 individual sites will start to receive planning permission, with the first phases of the new wind farms becoming operational in 2015. The first phases of the new round three wind farms are expected to start operating in 2015.

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[Zachstar]

1. Can they pick up the pace please?

We need this in 2010 not 2020.