A warm welcome to new Environmental Planning team members Alex Gorringe and Sue Crooks
APEM Group are delighted to welcome Senior EIA Consultants, Alex Gorringe and Sue Crooks to the Environmental Planning team. Working...
The Crown Estate, who own and manage the land and seabed around England, Wales and Northern Ireland, have released their Marine Delivery Routemap: an initiative to develop a long-term strategy for the marine space that aims to unlock delivery of net zero and nature recovery goals.
The first focused sector update released was the Future of Offshore Wind – Considerations for development and leasing to 2030 and beyond. The publication discusses current and future seabed development and how the Crown Estate can support the offshore wind industry over the next 15 years to meet clean power demands.
Key takeaways:
- Partnership with Great British Energy
- New borrowing and investment powers for the Crown Estate
- More seabed rights brought to market to increase OSW capacity
- Tackling systemic challenges that slow down development
Partnership with Great British Energy
The Crown Estate will be partnering with Great British Energy, a publicly-owned company founded by the Government in July this year. Great British Energy aims to drive the deployment of clean power in the UK, create jobs and ensure the UK benefits from home-grown energy via job creation, investment in emerging markets, community clean power projects and supply chain development.
The partnership promises to bring forward new OSW developments, stimulate new technology in emerging energy areas like tidal power and floating wind and invest in clean energy supply chains and ports. The partnership has also committed to lowering risk in the next round of offshore wind leases, AR7. After the underwhelming AR5 round, which failed to attract any offshore wind bids, and the subsequent record-breaking investment in clean power for AR6, we hope to see little impact on existing projects.
Enhanced borrowing and investment powers for the Crown Estate
New borrowing and investment powers are currently being debated in Parliament. With the aim of speeding up investment and development of offshore wind, the legislation would allow the Crown Estate to allocate between £200 million and £400 million to enable infrastructure assets (specifically offshore wind ports and offshore wind supply chain) to ease delays in offshore wind development.
The investment also aims to address the “significant revenue uncertainty and volatility” in the initial years of infrastructure development. Increasing the Crown Estate’s investment powers will allow “greater flexibility in and using different structures to deliver responsible financial returns from those investments”.
Tackling systemic challenges
The report reveals the Crown Estate’s aim to tackle systemic challenges, moving towards a “predictable, coordinated offshore wind development, while enabling nature recovery”.
Although an exact pathway is still being mapped out, potential steps include playing a more active role in identifying and surveying OSW sites; supporting the consenting process with environmental surveys and analysis and anticipating activities to de-risk and accelerate the consenting process post-lease; and improving coordination between seabed leasing, infrastructure planning and grid connections.
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The Marine Delivery Routemap signals the clear intention of The Crown Estate to accelerate UK delivery of clean energy whilst protecting and enhancing our precious natural environment. There is more work to be done, but this is a positive step and identifies what the main barriers are that still need to be overcome whilst inviting essential stakeholder feedback. Together with their Future of Offshore Wind report developed with Great British Energy, this should provide confidence to developers and investors that there is a credible path to hitting new UK offshore wind leasing targets by 2030 and in a way that promotes nature recovery.
– Gareth Johnson, Sector Director, Marine Science & Development, APEM Group
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Seabed rights for 20-30GW of offshore wind by 2030
The Crown Estate aims to bring to market enough seabed to unlock 20-30GW of offshore capacity by 2030 – enough to power nearly 20 million homes. To maintain momentum and achieve the UK’s net zero target for 2050, a mix of energy is needed, including an estimated 93-99GW of offshore wind by 2040 and up to 103GW by 2050.
Conclusion
The report moves towards unblocking the offshore wind pipeline, with new capacity to bring clean power to market by 2030. There are welcome proposals to meet systemic challenges faced by offshore wind developers, to accelerate and de-risk the process and to bring further investment into the industry.
As a world leader in offshore wind, the UK will require investment in the development of current projects and new technologies, to speed up the next wave of clean power and reach net zero and environmental targets sustainably and responsibly.
About APEM Group
APEM Group are one of the leading suppliers to the UK renewables sector. We support our clients in offshore wind with integrated data collection and consultancy services and work with Government stakeholders to continue to increase the pace of development, whilst ensuring nature positive outcomes and managing impacts on biodiversity and the wider environment.
Want to learn more about the clean power projects we’ve worked on so far, or the ways APEM Group supports our renewable energy clients with nature-positive solutions? Simply get in touch with one of our experts.
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