Equinor has confirmed it has bid for floating offshore wind in ScotWind, the competitive tender offshore wind seabed leasing round being undertaken by Crown Estate Scotland, according to the company's release.
The offshore energy company says the ScotWind Leasing round is a good strategic fit with its ambitions to continue to develop its North Sea offshore wind cluster and further deepen its presence across the UK.
With around half of the sites being floating offshore wind opportunities, the offshore energy company believes the Scottish Government is offering a great opportunity to develop large floating offshore wind projects at scale.
Equinor has more than a decade of operating experience from floating offshore wind and is the world’s leading floating offshore wind developer with floating wind turbines already deployed and producing electricity at Hywind, located off the northeast coast of Scotland.
Since Hywind Scotland started operations in 2019, the flagship project consistently provided the highest capacity factor among all UK offshore wind farms, proving the true potential of applying floating wind technology to get access to the best wind sources.
The Scottish Government has committed to reduce emissions to net zero by 2045, one of the most ambitious targets globally. To support this ambition, they have set a target to deliver up to 11GW of offshore wind capacity by 2030.
Equinor’s offshore wind strategy is to create value through early access at scale and deepening in regional clusters. The North Sea has among the world’s best wind resources and is Equinor’s largest and most mature offshore wind cluster, making it the backbone of Equinor’s offshore wind portfolio.
In Scotland, Equinor has a broad range of activities that are contributing towards a sustainable energy transition.
As operator of Hywind Scotland, the world’s first floating offshore wind farm located near Peterhead, the offshore energy company knows the potential that lies in developing offshore wind off the Scottish coast.
Also at Peterhead, Equinor together with its partner, SSE Thermal, plans to jointly develop a new low-carbon power station, which could become one of the UK’s first power stations equipped with carbon capture technology. The Peterhead CCS Power Station would propel the UK’s ambitions for carbon capture in power generation, meeting 15% of the UK Government’s 10 million tonne target for carbon captured by 2030.
Equinor’s upstream operations headquarters are based in Aberdeen employing around 500 people onshore and offshore including the operations of the Mariner field, east of Shetland.