Offshore application for Pentland floating wind project is 'significant milestone'
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The developers of a wind farm off the north coast of Caithness say they have reached a "significant milestone" after submitting their offshore application to the government agency Marine Scotland.
The proposed Pentland Floating Offshore Wind Farm (PFOWF) will see seven turbines up to 300m high to their blade tips being built around 7.5km offshore from Dounreay.
It is being developed by Highland Wind Limited, which is majority owned by Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) through one of its funds, and is due to be operational in 2026.
The 100MW development will be capable of providing clean energy to some 70,000 homes and will be the biggest of its kind in the world when complete.
Project director Richard Copeland said: “This is a significant milestone for the project and one that takes us closer to realising the far-reaching benefits it will bring, both in terms of supporting security of energy supply for the domestic UK market and contributing to a sustainable energy mix within the UK and Scotland.
“The core aim of the project is to test and demonstrate floating wind technology solutions that will reduce costs and accelerate industrialisation. This will offer learnings to inform the development of future floating projects in Scotland and the UK, such as ScotWind, INTOG [Innovation and Targeted Oil and Gas] and Celtic Sea, and the deployment of floating offshore wind globally, while contributing to building a strong local and national supply chain for the industry.”
Following consultation with the community, changes have been made to the final design of PFOWF to "minimise potential visual impacts". These include reducing the offshore site area for the turbines by 50 per cent and the maximum number of turbines from 10 to seven while still delivering the same power.
The development has existing consents granted by Marine Scotland for the original Dounreay Tri project, which the new application will replace; a lease from Crown Estate Scotland to test and demonstrate a floating project generating up to 100MW; and existing grid connection agreements.
The application to Marine Scotland is accompanied by an environmental impact assessment report and a habitats regulations appraisal.
Project development activities are being led by CIP’s development partner, Copenhagen Offshore Partners (COP). The project development team is based in Edinburgh.
