The Crown Estate has published proposals for floating wind leasing in the Celtic Sea (United Kingdom), seeking to unlock 4 GW of new offshore wind capacity in England and Wales. The proposals include a focus on early-commercial scale projects (around 300-350 MW) and on full-commercial scale projects (up to 1 GW). The leasing process would award the first rights by the end of 2023 for projects commissioned between 2030 and 2035. The leasing would be designed at a pace and scale to support the development of the related supply chain and infrastructure in the UK; it would be led in coordination with power transmission system operators to smoothly integrate floating wind projects into the grid operation.
The United Kingdom targets 1 GW of floating wind capacity by 2030. In July 2021, the Crown Estate authorised three new test and demonstration floating wind projects totalling 300 MW in the Celtic Sea to progress to the next stage of assessment, including the 100 MW Whitecross project developed by Offshore Wind Limited (OWL, a Cobra Instalaciones y Servicios and Flotation Energy joint venture), and the Llŷr 1 and Llŷr 2 projects (2 x 100 MW) developed by Floventis Energy (a joint venture between SBM Offshore and Cierco). Two other projects are proposed in the Celtic Sea by Blue Gem Wind, a joint venture between Total (80%) and Simply Blue Energy (20%), namely the 300 MW Valorous project and the 96 MW Erebus demonstration project.
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