The offshore application for the Pentland Floating Offshore Wind Farm has been submitted to Marine Scotland.
Located 7.5km off the coast of Dounreay in Caithness, the development should be capable of providing clean energy to approximately 70,000 homes - and when complete will be the biggest of its kind in the world.
Project director Richard Copeland said: “This is a significant milestone for the project and one which 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 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 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 local community, key changes have been made to the final design of the PFOWF to minimise visual potential visual impacts.
These include halving the offshore site area for the turbines and the maximum number of turbines from 10 to seven, while still delivering the same power of around 100 megawatts (MW).
These changes mean the overall footprint of the turbines is more compact, reducing their spread and visual impact along the coastline and minimising any potential impacts to shipping, navigation, fishing activity and ecology.
The development has consents granted by Marine Scotland for the original Dounreay Tri Project, which this new application will replace, as well as a lease from Crown Estate Scotland to test and demonstrate a floating project generating up to 100MW.
The application to Marine Scotland is accompanied by an Environmental Impact Assessment Report and a Habitats Regulations Appraisal.
The project is being developed by Highland Wind, which is majority owned by Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) through one of its CI Funds, with Hexicon as a minority shareholder.
The wind farm is planned to be operational in 2026.
Separately, SSE Renewables and TotalEnergies have announced first power generation from the Seagreen offshore wind farm, 27km off the coast of Angus.
The first Vestas turbine of a total of 114 was commissioned and connected to the grid in the early hours of Monday morning. The 1,075MW wind farm is expected to be fully operational in the first half of 2023.
The £3bn Seagreen project will be Scotland’s largest offshore wind farm and the world’s deepest fixed bottom wind farm, with its deepest foundation due to be installed at 59 metres below sea level in December.
Paul Cooley, director of global offshore wind for SSE Renewables, said: “Seagreen has achieved a number of key milestones to date, but to see this turbine turning in the North Sea and to have reached first power safely, is a fantastic achievement for everyone connected to the project.
“The project has already brought benefits to the local community, the UK supply chain and, once completed, Seagreen will make a significant contribution to Scotland and the UK’s ambitious renewable energy targets.”
TotalEnergies entered into an agreement with SSE Renewables to acquire a 51% stake in the Seagreen project in June 2020. Seagreen has an installed capacity of 1075MW.
When fully operational, the site will produce around 5 terawatt hours (TWh) of renewable electricity per year - enough to power the equivalent of 1.6 million households.
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