The Anonymous Widower

ScotWind Offshore Wind Leasing Delivers Major Boost To Scotland’s Net Zero Aspirations

The title of this post, is the same as that of this press release on the Crown Estate Scotland web site.

This is the first two paragraphs.

Crown Estate Scotland has today announced the outcome of its application process for ScotWind Leasing, the first Scottish offshore wind leasing round in over a decade and the first ever since the management of offshore wind rights were devolved to Scotland.

The results coming just months after Glasgow hosted the global COP26 climate conference show the huge opportunity that Scotland has to transform its energy market and move towards a net zero economy.

Some highlights are then listed.

• 17 projects have been selected out of a total of 74 applications.
• A total of just under £700m will be paid by the successful applicants in option fees and passed to the Scottish Government for public spending.
• The area of seabed covered by the 17 projects is just over 7,000km2.
• Initial indications suggest a multi-billion pound supply chain investment in Scotland
• The potential power generated will move Scotland towards net-zero.

This map shows the position of each wind farm.

Note, that the numbers are Scotwind’s lease number in their documents.

Fixed Foundation Wind Farms

These are the six fixed foundation wind farms.

• 1 – BP Alternative Energy Investments – 859 km² – 2.9 GW
• 6 – DEME – 187 km² – 1.0 GW
• 9 – Ocean Winds – 429 km² – 1.0 GW
• 13 – Offshore Wind Power – 657 km² – 2.0 GW
• 16 – Northland Power – 161 km² – 0.8 GW
• 17 – Scottish Power Renewables – 754 km² – 2.0 GW

Adding up these fixed foundation wind farms gives a capacity of 9.7 GW in 3042 km² or about 3.2 MW per km².

Floating Wind Farms

These are the ten floating wind farms.

• 2- SSE Renewables – 859 km² – 2.6 GW
• 3 – Falck Renewables Wind – 280 km² – 1.2 GW
• 4 – Shell – 860 km² – 2.0 GW
• 5 – Vattenfall – 200 km² – 0.8 GW
• 7 – DEME Concessions Wind – 200 km² – 1.0 GW
• 8 – Falck Renewables Wind – 256 km² – 1.0 GW
• 10 – Falck Renewables Wind – 134 km² – 0.5 GW
• 11 – Scottish Power Renewables – 684 km² – 3.0 GW
• 12 – BayWa r.e. UK  – 330 km² – 1.0 GW
• 14 – Northland Power – 390 km² – 1.5 GW

Adding up the floating wind farms gives a capacity of 14.6 GW in 4193 km² or about 3.5 MW per km².

Mixed Wind Farms

This is the single wind farm, that has mixed foundations.

15 – Magnora – 103 km² – 0.5 GW

This wind farm appears to be using floating wind turbines.

I have a few general thoughts.

Are Floating Wind Farms Further Out?

There does appear to be a pattern, where the wind farms that are further from the land tend to be floating wind farms and those closer to the land appear to be fixed.

Consider.

• As the water gets deeper, fixed wind turbines will surely get more expensive.
• Floating wind turbines are the newer and more unproven technology, so only those bidders, who have done their research and are happy with it, will have bid.

Falck Renewables Wind Seem To Be Working With BlueFloat Energy

In the three Falck Renewables successes with leases 3, 8 and 10, BlueFloat Energy is a partner in the lease.

According to their web site, BlueFloat Energy were very much involved in WindFloat Atlantic, where this is said.

Top members of our team were key contributors to the development and construction of the WindFloat Atlantic project from concept to Final Investment Decision to commissioning. This 25 megawatt (MW) floating offshore wind project in Portugal marked a turning point in the offshore wind industry as it was the first floating offshore wind project to secure bank financing. With 3 x MVOW’s 8.4 MW turbines, the WindFloat Atlantic project was the world’s first semi-submersible floating wind project and continental Europe’s first floating wind project.

So do Falck Renewables intend to use WindFloat technology in their areas, which are to produce a total of 2.7 GW?

Perhaps a fleet of two hundred floating wind turbines based on WindFloat technology each with a capacity of 14 MW would be ideal.

• Wind turbines would be interchangeable between all three farms.
• There could be a few standby turbines to allow for maintenance.
• It would be possible to borrow a turbine to explore a new site.

All it would need is technology to be able to position and connect a turbine into the wind farm and disconnect and remove a turbine from the wind farm, with simple procedures.

Did BP Avoid the Floating Wind Farms?

BP, who are relatively new to offshore wind, only had one success, for a large fixed wind farm. So did they avoid the floating wind farms?

Do Shell and Scottish Power Have A Bigger Plan? 

Shell and Scottish Power were successful with leases 4 and 11, which are reasonably close together.

They also won lease 17, which I wrote about in MacHairWind Wind Farm, where I concluded this.

The MacHairWind wind farm seems a well-positioned wind farm.

• It is close to Glasgow.
• It can be used in tandem with the Cruachan pumped hydro power station.
• It will have access to the Western HVDC Link to send power to the North-West of England.

Is Scotland replacing the 1.2 GW Hunterston B nuclear power station with a 2 GW wind farm, with help from Cruachan and other proposed pumped storage hydro schemes to the North of Glasgow?

So did Shell and Scottish Power get the pick of the bunch and will build two large floating wind farms close together?

Shell and Scottish Power seem to be using French company; Eolfi’s floating wind technology.

Why Do Floating Wind Farms Have A Higher Density?

The floating wind farms have an average energy density of 3.5 MW per sq. km, whereas the fixed wind farms only manage 3.2 MW per sq. km.

It may be only ten percent, but does that help the economics? It certainly, wouldn’t make them worse.

I do wonder though, if the reason for the higher density is simply that a floating turbine can be bigger, than a corresponding fixed turbine.

I also have a few more specific thoughts about individual farms.

Lease 15 – The Odd Bid Out

In any design competition, there is usually at least one design, that is not look like any of the others.

In the successful bids for the ScotWind leases, the bid from Magnora ASA stands out.

• The company has an unusual home page on its offshore wind web site.
• This page on their web site outlines their project.
• It will be technology agnostic, with 15MW turbines and a total capacity of 500MW
• It will use floating offshore wind with a concrete floater
• It is estimated, that it will have a capacity factor of 56 %.
• The water depth will be an astonishing 106-125m
• The construction and operation will use local facilities at Stornoway and Kishorn Ports.
• The floater will have local and Scottish content.
• The project will use UK operated vessels​.
• Hydrogen is mentioned.
• Consent is planned for 2026, with construction starting in 2028 and completion in 2030.

This project could serve as a model for wind farms all round the world with a 500 MW power station, hydrogen production and local involvement and construction.

I discuss this project in more detail in ScotWind N3 Offshore Wind Farm.

A Conclusion About Floating Wind

The various successful bids in this round of Scottish wind farm leases can be split by capacity into two groups.

• Floating + Mixed – 15.1 GW – 61 %
• Fixed – 9.7 GW – 39 %

Note that I have included Magnora’s successful mixed bid with the successful floating bids, as it uses floating wind turbines to generate electricity.

The over 60 % of successful bids involving floating wind farms, indicates to me, that the day of floating wind farms has arrived.

March 27, 2022 Posted by AnonW | Energy | BlueFloat Energy, BP, Falck Renewables/Renantis, Floating Wind Power, MachairWind Wind Farm, Magnora ASA, Scotland, ScottishPower, ScotWind Leasing, ScotWind N3 Wind Farm, Shell, SSE, WindFloat, WindFloat Atlantic | 17 Comments