The Crown Estate has announced alterations to the leasing process for Offshore Wind Leasing Round 5 – The Celtic Sea.

The seabed manager has provided further details on how it will run the tender process for the first commercial-scale floating wind farms in the Celtic Sea, off the coast of Wales and the South West of England. The leasing process will now be known as ‘Round 5’.

The leasing round will offer up to 4GW of capacity in four project sites located in two areas previously identified as suitable for floating wind development. These areas are closer to shore and grid connection than some of the areas of proposed development published in October 2022 which have now been discounted.

Tender structure: integration ports, social value and auction design

Bidders have been informed that they will be required to set out a number of commitments as part of the tender process, including how they intend to reflect the important role of ports in the assembly and deployment of turbines. In particular, integration ports are expected to play a key role when it comes to the manufacture and storage of the numerous components required to deploy floating offshore wind, such as foundation assembly, cabling and placing the turbines on top of the floating foundations.

New aspects of the tender design will also require developers to set out more detail on how they plan to create lasting social and environmental value, with the introduction of questions linked to the UK Government’s social value model (SVM) focused on education, inclusion, environment and communities.

The Crown Estate has also set out changes to the auction design to increase transparency and offer developers maximum opportunity to set the most appropriate prices. Rather than bidders submitting their best and final offer immediately to stand a chance of winning, The Crown Estate will adopt a ‘rising clock’ auction, which will see pricing movements published during the different rounds, allowing greater transparency for developers over whether other parties are still bidding for certain locations.

Next steps

There remains a lack of a set timetable for the leasing round with The Crown Estate stating that final confirmation of the design of the tender and Project Development Areas is expected over the summer, ahead of the formal launch of the tender later in 2023.

Further information from The Crown Estate can be found here.