The UK’s Crown Estate has begun a programme of market engagement to prepare of its planned Offshore Wind Leasing Round 6, in the first half of 2027 (Crown Estate press release, 26/03/2026). The programme aims to involve market and stakeholder engagement to determine the specific locations to be tendered, their capacity and even the best approach for the tender process and commercial model to make sure they correspond to the needs of the market and the UK’s long-term strategies. The leasing round expects to tender a capacity of about 6 GW, predominantly in the North East of England and in water depths suitable for fixed-bottom wind.
The upcoming leasing round will be the first to use the The Crown Estate’s Marine Delivery Routemap, a tool that provides a greater long-term visibility on how the seabed can be developed through the use of spatial data from a number of sectors dependent on the sea space to inform future leasing, licensing and sector plans. This should also help to collaborate with NESO, by assuring its full alignment with the UK’s energy system through NESO’s SSEP.
The UK’s offshore wind pipeline has a current capacity of nearly 17 GW and a further 12 GW under construction.
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