Onshore application submitted for 100MW Pentland floating wind farm
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
The bid to create a seven-turbine wind farm off the north coast of Caithness has taken another step forward with the submission of the onshore planning application to Highland Council.
The 100MW Pentland Floating Offshore Wind Farm (PFOWF) is seen as a key project in advancing the deployment of large-scale floating offshore wind.
It is being developed by Highland Wind Limited, which is majority owned by Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners through one of its funds, and will be the biggest of its kind in the world when complete.
Seven turbines up to 300m high to their blade tips will be built around 7.5km offshore from Dounreay.
PFOWF pointed out that, following extensive public consultation, "very few changes" were made to the application for planning permission in principle. This covers the project’s onshore infrastructure elements and includes the onshore application boundary, an environmental impact assessment and visualisations of indicative substation locations.
If approved, the consent will allow the construction of an onshore substation and cables that will feed power from the floating wind turbines into the existing local grid network.
The wind farm is due to be operational in 2026.
Project director Richard Copeland said: “The submission of the onshore planning application highlights another key milestone for Pentland, which will provide a test bed for new floating wind technologies while bringing a number of benefits to the local area.”
“It was encouraging to see that the onshore plans were well received and very few changes were made to the application following local consultation. At every stage of this project, we’ve aimed to consult as comprehensively as possible to ensure the development remains considerate of the region and its residents.
“The onshore application submission comes following the submission of the offshore consent application to Marine Scotland in August this year.
"Alongside these developments, we have continued to progress initiatives such as developing an operations and maintenance base at Scrabster harbour, consulting on our proposed community benefit fund to ensure the Caithness and Sutherland area benefits from the project, and supporting STEM [science, technology, engineering and mathematics] careers through our regional bursary awards.”
The submission comes ahead of a business breakfast being held in partnership with Caithness Chamber of Commerce in Thurso on November 23. The event will outline the project and the opportunities available to supply chain companies in the area.
PFOWF announced last month that it had selected Stiesdal Offshore’s TetraSub floating technology, describing it as "an ideal fit" for the project.
