Crown Estate Scotland has awarded Flotation Energy and Vårgrønn exclusivity for areas to develop up to 1.9GW of floating offshore wind capacity across two projects, namely Green Volt and Cenos in the North Sea.
The offshore wind developers were awarded the rights under Crown Estate Scotland’s offshore wind leasing process dubbed Innovation and Targeted Oil and Gas (INTOG), which pertains to the Scottish part of the North Sea.
INTOG leasing seeks to bring in investment in innovative offshore wind projects in Scottish waters and to help decarbonise oil and gas operations in the North Sea with low-carbon electricity.
Following the successful bid, the Green Volt and Cenos floating offshore windfarms are expected to produce their first power from 2027 and 2028, respectively.
Flotation Energy said that the power and grid-connection supplied via the two Scottish windfarms will deliver clean energy to oil and gas platforms in the nearby areas. This will help replace the power that is currently produced by using gas turbines.
The Green Volt and Cenos projects will also supply up to 7TWh of renewable electricity to the UK grid annually.
Besides, the two floating offshore wind projects are anticipated to mitigate carbon emissions by three million tonnes annually.
Flotation Energy CEO Nicol Stephen said: “These floating windfarms will make a huge contribution to the reduction of CO2 emissions from offshore oil and gas platforms by replacing industrial-scale gas turbines with renewable energy straight from our windfarms, while also becoming long-term infrastructure assets providing renewable electricity to millions of Scottish homes for decades ahead.
“The scale of these floating wind projects is huge. They will deliver billions of pounds of new infrastructure investment and help to create thousands of local jobs, giving a major boost to the Scottish supply chain.”
Norway-based offshore wind company Vårgrønn is a joint venture between Italian energy company Plenitude and the Norwegian energy investor HitecVision. Flotation Energy, which is based in Scotland, announced its partnership with Vårgrønn in September 2022.
A total of 13 projects were selected out of 19 applications filed for the INTOG leasing round.
