New consortiums bid for ScotWind leasing

UK utilities SSE Renewables and Scottish Power have submitted bids under different consortiums into Crown Estate Scotland's ScotWind offshore wind leasing round, which closed today.

SSE Renewables partnered with Japanese conglomerate Marubeni and Danish fund manager Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners while ScottishPower joined forces with Shell, the companies announced today.

These are the latest consortiums to be announced for the competitive leasing, following partnerships between BP and German utility EnBW; Australian bank Macquarie's Green Investment Group, French energy firm TotalEnergies and Scottish company Renewable Infrastructure Development Group; Swedish utility Vattenfall and Norwegian developer Fred Olsen Renewables; Denmark's Orsted and Italy's Falck Renewables; and Ocean Winds — a partnership between French utility Engie and Portugal's EDPR — and developer Aker Offshore Wind.

ScottishPower and Shell said today that they submitted multiple proposals for new large-scale floating offshore windfarms.

The ScotWind leasing is the first round of seabed leasing for offshore wind in Scottish waters in over a decade. It will grant property rights for up to 10GW of new large-scale offshore wind project development, including floating wind for the first time, ScottishPower and Shell noted.

Crown Estate Scotland is expected to announce the results of the leasing round in early 2022, the utilities added.

By Juan Weik