Virtual consultation to get under way on floating wind farm project off Dounreay

Public consultation begins next week on a proposed wind farm off the north coast of Caithness that could offer "big opportunities" for the local economy.

Pentland Floating Offshore Wind Farm will consist of up to 10 floating turbines, with a maximum blade-tip height of 300 metres, to be located around six kilometres north-west of Dounreay.

With an installed capacity of up to 100 megawatts, it is likely to be the largest floating offshore wind farm in the world when it is built in the mid-2020s.

It is being developed by Highland Wind Limited, which is majority owned by Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners. The project is being taken forward in two phases, using the consent granted for the earlier Dounreay Trì scheme followed by a larger array which is going through the consenting process.

A virtual consultation event begins on Monday, September 27, via the Pentland Floating Offshore Wind farm website – pentlandfloatingwind.com – with members of the public invited to view the proposals and comment on them by the end of October.

The project team will be available for two question-and-answer sessions on Tuesday, October 5, via a live chat function.

The developers say the technology trialled in the Pentland project will have a key role in the development of large-scale floating offshore wind in Scotland.

Project director Richard Copeland said: “We know that Covid restrictions are reducing but we know that some people might not be comfortable coming along to a physical event.

"We decided it’s best to do the consultation virtually so it’s accessible to everyone. But we will follow up with some in-person events.

“We’re developing the project in two stages. We will do a demonstration of a single floating turbine and we’ll follow that up with a small array of floating turbines – so you’ll have the Pentland demonstrator and Pentland array.

“The project itself will be limited to 100 megawatts – enough to power up to 70,000 homes.”

It is hoped the single demonstrator turbine will be in the water by 2023. “The array itself is two to three years behind that, so that’s why we’re going through the consultation stage,” Mr Copeland explained.

He insists there is “all to play for” in terms of manufacturing and other opportunities for the local economy.

“The project has the potential to bring a lot of benefits to the local area, to the Highland Council area in general and to Scotland and the UK," Mr Copeland said.

“One of the things from fixed-bottom offshore wind farms is that people maybe felt that the manufacturing jobs have not necessarily come to the UK. But there is a really big opportunity for floating offshore wind because the UK is ahead of the rest of the world, essentially.

“We are already working with a lot of local suppliers and we certainly have been in touch with Scrabster Harbour Trust and we will continue to do that. We are aiming to continue to engage with all of them.

“We are also doing a local supply chain study supported by the University of the Highlands and Islands, so we’ll hopefully announce some of the potential benefits associated with the project in terms of job creation and value added to the local economy in due course.

“The ScotWind leasing round is happening as well and this Pentland project is a precursor to that.

“A benefit that offshore brings is that you can build more ‘out of sight, out of mind’ and to a much bigger scale. So you really need fewer onshore wind farms as a result.

"With offshore wind, because of the scale of it, there are big economic opportunities to come.”

Mr Copeland added that floating offshore wind will be "absolutely key if we’re to achieve net-zero”.

Originally the turbines in the array were to have a maximum blade-tip height of 270m but this has been increased by 30m.

Andy Blyth, environment and consents manager for Pentland Floating Offshore Wind Farm, said: "Turbine technology is continually evolving and it is clear that turbines of this scale may be available within our programme."

He stressed that the project team would be "upfront" on the issue of visual impact, with montages showing how the array will look in the clearest conditions.

“It’s something that we know there will be concerns about, but what we’re trying to do is be as upfront as possible,” he said.

Surveys will be carried out to assess the environmental impact.