Danish utility Ørsted has acquired an 80% stake in the 100 MW Salamander floating offshore wind development project on the Scottish coast, entering a joint venture partnership with Irish developer Simply Blue Group alongside minority JV partner, Subsea 7.
Established by Simply Blue, the Salamander project is intended to be progressed through the innovation track of Crown Estate Scotland’s forthcoming Innovation and Targeted Oil and Gas (INTOG) leasing round later this year. The project follows on from other such projects Simply Blue is developing with major energy operators around Ireland and Wales.
Martin Neubert, the deputy CEO and chief commercial officer at Ørsted, said: “This promising project further expands Ørsted’s engagement in floating offshore wind and will provide a lot of learnings that we can apply on Scotwind and other floating wind projects as the technology transitions from demo projects to utility scale. Ørsted has been driving the commercialisation of bottom-fixed offshore wind for 30 years, and during the next decade we want to help make floating offshore wind similarly successful through projects such as this one.”
The Salamander project is expected to contribute to the Scottish government’s target of 11 GW of installed offshore wind by 2030 as well as the UK government’s target of 1 GW of operational floating offshore wind by the same date. Green Giraffe acted as advisor to Simply Blue Group and Subsea 7 on the Salamander joint venture with Ørsted. Financial details have not been disclosed.
