The Crown Estate has committed a further £25 million into its Offshore Wind Evidence and Change Programme, bringing the total investment intent up to £50 million. 

There are 23 projects in the current portfolio representing £33milion of funding – £22million from The Crown Estate’s core investment fund, and £11million of co-funding or in-kind contributions. The projects are helping to find space in a busy seabed through spatial co-ordination and co-location; and are designed to inform policy and regulation to enable a more integrated design of windfarms and the natural environment. This includes potential environmental compensatory measures to address environmental impacts and support timely and informed decision-making.

The additional funding will be used to deliver research and data projects that support the acceleration of offshore wind deployment including projects that address priority bird, marine mammal and seabed habitat research gaps identified in year one of the programme. There will also be a renewed focus on floating offshore wind and cable infrastructure. In direct response to the British Energy Security Strategy, alongside the focus on strategic compensation, the programme will support the work of the government’s new Marine Recovery Fund and implementation of nature-based design standards.

The full news piece can be read here.

The Crown Estate has also published its tenth annual Offshore Wind Report which provides an in-depth insight into the progress of the UK’s offshore wind sector during 2021. The news release states that ‘This year’s report highlights the strong collective progress made by the UK offshore wind industry in meeting accelerating demand for renewable electricity in support of net zero. In 2021 over a fifth of all global capacity additions were in the UK, the industry supplied enough green electricity to power a third of all UK homes and a new era of floating offshore windfarms began to take shape.

Highlights from the report include:

• UK offshore wind generated enough electricity in 2021 to supply the needs of 33% (9.3m) of UK homes – up from 4% in 2011.
• Kincardine became the world’s largest floating operational offshore wind farm, and Hornsea 2 – the largest site under construction in the world – started generating electricity.
• 2021 ushered in an era of new floating wind technology in the UK, which has taken an important step forward with the announcement that 300MW of new projects have been given the green light, to progress to the next stage of assessment.

Further information can be found here and the full report accessed here.