The programme for round 3 is expected to accelerate delivery of offshore windfarms projects, combining the development experience of the offshore wind industry with the benefits of The Crown Estate’s knowledge and management experience of the UK’s coasts and seas.

The Crown Estate will in due course be inviting potential partners to bid for development zones; identified through both spatial planning by The Crown Estate and the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) being undertaken by BERR. Successful bidders will have exclusive rights to develop windfarms in specified zones.

The Crown Estate is planning to co-invest up to 50 per cent of the cost of obtaining planning consents for windfarm sites, including the funding of enabling works intended to speed up windfarm delivery.

This may include action to address generic, zone-wide environmental concerns, consenting bottlenecks, supply chain constraints and options for connecting new windfarms to the national grid.

The selected partners will remain wholly responsible for construction and operation of windfarm sites.

The Crown Estate is not intending to take any role in the eventual ownership or operation of offshore windfarms resulting from this programme other than to provide leases of the seabed to operators.

As owner of the seabed, The Crown Estate has a central role in the delivery of offshore wind.

Round 3 builds on the 8 GW of offshore windfarm projects currently under development and to be delivered by rounds 1 and 2 of offshore windfarm development.

If successful, the addition of the capacity from round 3 would lead to a potential total of 33 GW of wind energy coming from offshore wind resources.

The rapid development of offshore wind capacity is central to the delivery of the UK’s share of the EU target of 20 per cent renewable energy by 2020.

Rob Hastings, The Crown Estate’s director of Marine Estates, said: “The government has committed to challenging carbon targets and wind energy is the only renewable technology that can deliver the required quantity by the required timescales.

“The new approach to the deployment of offshore wind that The Crown Estate have set out today requires us take an important facilitating role in which we will share developer’s risk.

"For the first time, we will be investing directly in offshore windfarm development.

"We will be helping to identify suitable sites and working closely with commercial partners who we expect to make considerable capital investments in offshore windfarm assets.

“We recognise that the 2020 EU renewable energy target is a major challenge for the UK.

"It will demand a strategic vision, combining innovation in technology and energy infrastructure with sympathy for environmental concerns. In partnership with windfarm developers, we will need to establish the best location for windfarms within the programme and gain consensus with key stakeholders to deliver each scheme.

“We need to be sensitive to other marine users and conservation interests, and we have to deliver all this in the context of worldwide competition and a limited supply of new wind turbines.

"For these reasons, we believe that a holistic and joined-up approach is key to the delivery of this project.”

Malcolm Wicks, minister of state for energy, said: “The expansion of wind energy is already a real success story for the UK. We will shortly become the leading country in the world in terms of the number of windfarms operating offshore.

"The potential for round 3 will add to that success.

“Last year, we announced the commencement of a SEA for offshore wind development.

"The scoping consultation phase is complete and a summary of the responses has been published today.

"We are on course with this work and expect to be able to make decisions early in 2009 regarding the conclusions of our assessment for up to 25 GW of offshore wind.

“Government is aware of the costs and supply challenges facing the industry.

"It’s hoped The Crown Estate’s investment and leasing programme for round 3 will provide developers with confidence to make investments much earlier on, like signing grid connection agreements or ordering turbines.

“We are working to reduce other barriers such as radar, shipping, grid access and infrastructure issues.

"We will be consulting in the summer to drive this forward even further to achieve our renewable energy targets.”

The Crown Estate is being advised by Norton Rose LLP, SJ Berwin LLP, Climate Change Capital and PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

www.fishupdate.com is published by Special Publications. Special Publications also publish FISHupdate magazine, Fish Farmer, the Fish Industry Yearbook, the Scottish Seafood Processors Federation Diary, the Fish Farmer Handbook and a range of wallplanners.

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