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British Crown Estate opens Offshore Wind Leasing Round 4

The Crown Estate has issued the Pre-Qualification Questionnaire (PQQ) for Offshore Wind Leasing Round 4, which will offer seabed rights for at least 7 GW of new offshore wind projects in England and Wales (United Kingdom). Interested bidders will have to submit their PQQ by the end of November 2019 and the PQQ stage will run until January 2020. The Crown Estate will then issue invitations to tenders for two stages, between February and June 2020 and in September 2020, respectively. The agreements for lease (AfL) will be signed with successful bidders in the autumn 2021.

In November 2018, the Crown Estate raised the future offered offshore wind capacity from 6 GW to 7 GW. In May 2019, it presented plans for the Round 4 leasing scheme, introducing a new tender design requirement to make sure that applying projects will be awarded across a minimum of three seabed regions to help facilitate greater geographic diversity. Besides, the number of project bids per bidder was refined: the applying companies will be able to bid for up to five variations of site boundaries, anchored at each of five locations, totalling a maximum of 25 possible site options. Eventually, the lease terms will be increased from the current 50 years to 60 years.