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North Sea Auction
Fuelling the Power of Water
A North Sea Auction Produces Big Plans for Scottish Wind Farms
Oil giants like BP and Shell and Green ESL as well as Iberdrola, the Spanish utility, look like the big winners in Scotland’s first offshore wind auction. Once the wind farms are constructed, they would triple Britain’s capacity to generate electricity from turbines at sea. They would also advance the country from oil and gas production into a major area for renewable electric power.
Companies were bidding on the chance to develop offshore parcels covering 2,700 square miles. The auction will bring in nearly 700 million pounds, or about $955 million, in option fees to the Scottish government. Energy executives said the Scottish projects were unlikely to start generating power before the late 2020s.
There was now “a real opportunity” for Scotland to become a center for renewable energy, including hydrogen, electric vehicle charging and other solutions to climate change. The Scottish government insisted that winning bidders spend substantial sums with local businesses. Overall, the 17 offshore wind projects awarded are likely to bring in tens of billions of pounds in investment, bolstering the British and Scottish economies.
Why are we talking about the next generation, when the current one hasn’t been built?
That’s an easy one. These projects take time: identify suitable bits of sea, without too much hazard for marine life or shipping: then auction the right to develop that, starting a long, technical process of securing permissions, designing the project including its subsea cabling and links to the grid, getting in place the billions of pounds required, placing orders and getting on with installation.
With Beatrice, to the east of Caithness, the only big wind farm in operation in Scottish waters, we’re now seeing significant activity in preparing the seabed for a large array close to the East Neuk of Fife, plus the subsea cabling.
Next will be wind arrays off the Aberdeenshire and Angus coast. The generation begun nearly 10 years ago will begin to appear on the horizon before long.
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