The Scottish Government has said it will work with SSE Renewables to progress its major 4.1GW Berwick Bank offshore wind farm after it missed a crucial deadline due to slow consenting.
Speaking in the Scottish Parliament, Small Business Minister Richard Lochhead said that the wind farm “is a majorly significant project for Scotland and we will continue to work with the applicant”.
The minister was reacting to questions from MSP for Edinburgh Central Sarah Boyack, who asked Lochhead what the Scottish Government is doing to reduce consenting application timescales.
He noted that since Berwick Bank is a complex project, “any decision by the Scottish Ministers must fully consider both the positive contribution to net zero targets alongside the possible impact to the natural environment and other users of the sea”.
He added that “these are extremely important issues, we don’t want to get this wrong, every application has to be assessed properly and that’s why there is a proper process in place”.
Berwick Bank
SSE Renewables’ Berwick Bank offshore wind farm missed out on applying for a contract for difference (CfD) in the UK’s latest Allocation Round 6 (AR6) as it is still awaiting final approval from Scottish Ministers.
The East Lothian-based project made its application in December 2022, with a decision expected last year. However, the AR6 deadline passed on 19th April with the project still lacking its final approval, with calls to approve the project by early summer.
Berwick Bank will need to wait until AR7 to bid for a CfD, which is set to come in 2025, not long before the project’s expected commissioning date of between 2026 and 2027.
The delays are holding back a major project that could potentially supply 4.1GW of power across 206 turbines to the UK grid. SSE Renewables had previously said the project could potentially create nearly 5,000 jobs.
It comes at a time when Scotland’s climate goals are looking particularly shaky after the Scottish Government abandoned its climate target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 75% by 2030.
Offshore wind pipeline
Speaking in Parliament, Boyack raised concerns that the failure to approve the project in time for AR6 sends a negative signal to the industry.
Including Berwick Bank, Scotland has a total of 19 offshore wind projects currently in development, representing about 31.5GW of potential capacity. Without Berwick Bank, there is still around 27.4GW of capacity still needing to move through the approvals process.
Many of these are projects still in the early stages of the development, such as community outreach and preparing their environmental assessments. These have targeted commissioning dates in the late 2020s or early 2030s.
The 100MW Pentland Floating Offshore Wind farm is the furthest along in its application, which is awaiting consent after submitting its scoping report in 2020.
The project, being developed by Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP), will site ten 10MW turbines off Caithness.
Its expected commissioning date is between 2024 and 2025.
While the results of AR6 are yet to be announced, around 10GW were eligible to enter, though it may bring in just half of this.
Lochhead noted: “Scotland’s decarbonisation plans and green jobs potential will be further boosted by the six projects consented by the Scottish Government in time for the CfD AR6 application window.”
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