Crown Estate awards rights to Gwynt y Mor offshore wind extension

The Crown Estate has awarded seabed rights for the proposed extension to the 576-MW Gwynt y Mor wind farm off the North Wales coast, it was announced on Wednesday.

The expansion project, to be known as Awel y Mor, will add up to 576 MW of capacity to the existing wind park.

The renewable energy unit of utility RWE AG (ETR:RWE) said last month that it teamed up with fellow German companies Stadtwerke Muenchen and Siemens Financial Services to implement the scheme. RWE Renewables UK will hold 60% of the new wind park, while communal company Stadtwerke München will own a 30% stake and the rest will go to the financing arm of Siemens AG (ETR: SIE).

RWE leads the development and has inked an agreement for an offshore wind lease with the Crown Estate for an area of about 106 sq km (40.9 sq miles) located west of the existing wind park. Work on the project is still at a very early stage, with the exact size and capacity of the project to be determined in the future, it said at the time.

Also on Wednesday it was announced that the "Northern Wales and Irish Sea Bidding Areas" of Wales’s seabed will be included in the Crown Estate’s Offshore Wind Leasing Round 4. Projects from that round will be identified later in 2020 as part of a competitive tender process. The winners will be known next year.

As previously unveiled, Blue Gem Wind Ltd, a joint venture between French oil-and-gas major Total SA (EPA:FP) and marine energy developer Simply Blue Energy, won seabed rights as well -- for a 96-MW floating wind demonstration project off the coast of Wales.

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