The Crown Estate has announced its first major investment in surveys to support the proposal to unlock valuable new clean energy capacity through floating offshore wind in the Celtic Sea.

By investing in these surveys at an early stage and making the data freely available to successful bidders, The Crown Estate is aiming to accelerate the delivery of projects, making it easier for developers to take early decisions and manage risk, while supporting future project level Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) as part of the planning process.

Over the last year, The Crown Estate has been working with its technical advisors, alongside industry and other stakeholders, including statutory nature conservation bodies, to develop a programme of surveys which will deliver strong, reliable and useful datasets for developers. Precise specifications will be kept under review as the programme progresses, but will cover a range of important areas, including the geophysical and geotechnical properties of the seabed, wind, wave and current patterns, and marine wildlife.

As well as providing successful bidders with easy access to vital data and speeding up the development process, it is hoped the programme will avoid the need for developers to conduct additional surveys later in the process, while making best use of limited specialist survey resource.

Contracts have now been signed for the initial phase of metocean surveys, which look at wind, wave and current patterns, to begin in Spring 2023. The Crown Estate is progressing the procurement of the remaining surveys over the coming weeks and months, subject to further commercial discussions.

Further information from the Crown Estate can be read here.