Oil and gas giant Shell has teamed up with Iberdrola-owned ScottishPower to bid to develop large-scale floating wind farms off the coast of Scotland.
The partners have submitted multiple proposals for the potential projects as part of the ScotWind leasing round, which closed for submissions on Friday.
ScottishPower, chief executive Keith Anderson, said: “Bringing ScottishPower and Shell’s collective knowledge, experience and expertise together means we’re perfectly placed to lead the way in developing large-scale offshore floating wind farms and creating a new green industry with massive potential for exporting our skills and experience globally and helping the UK decarbonise its energy generation.
“With just a few months until the COP26 UN Climate Change Summit in Glasgow, ScotWind will help create a whole new industry in floating wind that will play a crucial role in putting the country on course for a cleaner and greener future.”
Shell UK country chair David Bunch said: “If our bid is successful, Shell and SPR are fully committed to working with Scottish communities and businesses to help develop supply chains and expertise which could make Scotland a world leader in floating wind.
“At Shell we continue to grow our capacity to generate, trade and supply cleaner power to our customers and to play our part in powering the UK to net-zero.”
ScotWind leasing round could enable up to 10 GW of new offshore wind farms to be constructed. A total of 8,600 sq km of Scottish seabed is potentially available for development. With this move, Shell has joined several top energy players looking to develop offshore wind in Scotland, such as BP, TotalEnergies, Eni, Equinor, and Ørsted.
Crown Estate Scotland is expected to announce the results of the ScotWind leasing round in early 2022.
