The Crown Estate has announced revised plans for its next offshore wind leasing round, which could help generate at least 7GW of renewable energy.
An updated tender design process for Offshore Wind Round 4 was published yesterday (18 July) ahead of the actual competition for new seabed sites around England, Wales and Northern Ireland, which will take place later this year.
The next leasing round will make at least 6GW of new seabed rights available to developers through a three-stage tender process, which will include a pre-qualification stage to assess the competence of bidders and two invitation to tender stages.
The updated tender process including a multi-cycle bidding process to award projects in sequence through daily bidding cycles.
According to the Crown Estate, this will help increase transparency and ensure developers have information about the price, location and capacity of awarded projects at each stage.
The revised tender process will also introduce an annual payment for option fees, subject to an initial three-year commitment and rental discounts for developers interested in trialling new technologies.
The tender rules will also now ensure that projects are awarded in at least three separate seabed areas, with a maximum of 3.5GW within any one site.
“Our goal has been to design a process that is attractive, accessible and fair, supports the sustainable development of the seabed and ultimately delivers a robust pipeline of new projects that will help the UK’s transition to a low-carbon economy,” said business development manager, Jonny Boston.
“Today’s update confirms the tender design for Round 4, giving developers as much information as possible, to inform their planning ahead of the launch later this year.”
Commenting on the revised plans, RenewableUK’s head of policy and regulation, Barnaby Wharton said: “It’s crucial that leasing for new offshore wind sites supports the right level of ambition to meet our net zero emissions target, while ensuring value for consumers. By moving to multiple bidding rounds for new offshore wind sites.
“The Crown Estate has recognised a more transparent process is needed to avoid adding unnecessary costs. That is welcome and should be the principle which guides the Crown Estate in implementing this new leasing process”.