Irish state-owned utility ESB on Friday confirmed its award in Crown Estate Scotland’s seabed leasing round, securing the rights to develop a 100-MW floating offshore wind project off Northern Ireland.
Scotland’s first-of-its-kind leasing process aimed at decarbonising offshore oil and gas platforms awarded exclusivity agreements to thirteen offshore wind projects representing about 5.5 GW of capacity. All of them will use floating wind technology.
ESB was successful in the competition with a proposal for an offshore wind farm in the Malin Sea that was co-developed by the Irish utility and Dublin Offshore Technology and Belfast-based Catagen. The goal of the scheme is to back the decarbonisation of the aviation sector by powering sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production.
“Floating offshore wind has the potential to revolutionise our energy landscape and overcoming the technological challenges will be key to unlocking that potential,” said Paul Lennon, head of offshore wind and hydrogen at ESB.
ESB is now preparing to conduct an environmental and technical analysis for the Malin Sea Wind project in the next few months. It expects to enter a lease option for the site after Marine Scotland’s planning process for the INTOG Sectoral Marine Plan (INTOG SMP) is finalised, which is due to occur in the winter of 2023-2024
Source: renewablesnow
