The Crown Estate to increase capacity of seven UK offshore wind farms

The Crown Estate in the UK has announced that it's proceeding with its Capacity Increase Programme to maximise the potential of existing offshore wind lease areas.

An additional 4.7GW of energy could be generated from the delivery of the programme by amending existing seabed rights to increase the capacity of seven fixed-bottom offshore windfarms located around England and Wales.

This decision supports the UK’s Government’s target of up to 50GW of clean energy from offshore wind deployed by 2030.

Currently, the UK has nearly 15GW of offshore wind deployed off its coasts.

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The projects were awarded rights in either The Crown Estate’s Offshore Wind Leasing Round 3 or The Crown Estate’s 2017 Offshore Wind Extensions opportunity, which aims to efficiently unlock additional offshore wind capacity by extending existing offshore wind farms.

All seven projects have existing grid connections and infrastructure which will enable swift deployment and are within pre-established offshore wind sites. They are:

• Awel y Môr,
• Dudgeon Extension,
• Sheringham Shoal Extension,
• North Falls,
• Five Estuaries,
• Rampion 2,
• Dogger Bank D.

A Habitats Regulations Assessment was undertaken to assess the effects of the Capacity Increase Programme on protected habitats. After this was concluded, The Crown Estate recommended to the Secretary of State for Energy & Net Zero that the programme should proceed on the basis of a derogation, with compensation measures to address the identified impacts on marine habitats and species. This recommendation has been agreed by the Secretary of State.

In its recommendation, The Crown Estate maintained that proceeding with the capacity increases is in the national interest due to the contribution towards the UK’s 2030 clean power targets and the decarbonisation of the electricity grid by 2035.

Gus Jaspert, managing director, Marine at The Crown Estate, said: “Delivering the Capacity Increase Programme is an effective way to provide up to four million homes with secure, clean energy and further decrease the UK’s reliance on fossil fuels, often sourced internationally.

“Balancing the needs of energy and nature is an important responsibility we carefully consider, and we’re confident in the environmental compensation measures which will accompany the delivery of the programme. As we look to the future, our leading and collaborative Marine Delivery Routemap will be well-placed to support prioritisation decisions and avoid nature impacts as much as possible.”