Scottish seabed landlord Crown Estate Scotland has selected 13 projects under its flagship floating offshore wind leasing process intended to reduce UK North Sea oil and gas emissions and boost innovation.
Under the Innovation and Targeted Oil and Gas (INTOG) leasing, developers have been offered initial agreements that, if accepted would enable them to start offshore wind development work while Marine Scotland’s planning process for the sectoral marine plan (INTOG SMP) is completed.
Five projects have been picked for innovation projects totalling 499 MW and eight related to oil and gas decarbonisation of around 5 GW.
The largest winners for the so-called targeted oil & gas (TOG) are Cerulean Winds with three lease options of around 3 GW and Flotation Energy and Vårgrønn tie-up, for areas to develop a total of up to 1.9 GW of floating wind. In the innovation pot Bluefloat Energy and Renantis partnership secured rights for two projects of nearly 100 MW, with Simply Blue Energy and ESB Asset Development UK for 100 MW each and BP for 50 MW projects. TOG projects have been offered leases for 50 years with 25 years for IN projects.
If a successful proposed project is offered an option agreement it will go through planning, consenting, and financing stages. Responsibility for these next steps does not sit with Crown Estate Scotland, and projects will only progress to a full seabed lease once all planning stages have been completed.  
The option agreements are expected for 2024, with around £262m in applicant fees to be secured with further revenues coming in once projects are operating. All net revenues from Crown Estate Scotland will go to the Scottish Government for public spending.
