August 24 (Renewables Now) - Sponsors behind the 100-MW Pentland floating wind farm project in Scottish waters have submitted the offshore application for the development to Marine Scotland, they announced on Tuesday.

Pentland is promoted by Highland Wind Limited, a partnership that is majority owned by a fund managed by Denmark’s Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) and Swedish floating wind specialist Hexicon AB (STO:HEXI) as a minority shareholder. CIP’s development partner, Copenhagen Offshore Partners (COP) is leading the project development.

The floating wind farm is set to be located off the coast of Dounreay, Caithness. Once up and spinning, it will become the northernmost offshore wind farm in the world, according to Hexicon.

The project design underwent several changes following community engagement. Pentland will now have seven turbines instead of the proposed ten without sacrificing the capacity, which remains at around 100 MW. The offshore site area has been reduced by 50% to make the overall footprint more compact and minimise the visual impact, Highland Wind said.

“The core aim of the project is to test and demonstrate floating wind technology solutions that will reduce costs and accelerate industrialisation,” project director Richard Copeland said. “This will offer learnings to inform the development of future floating projects in Scotland and the UK, such as ScotWind, INTOG and Celtic Sea, and the deployment of floating offshore wind globally, while contributing to building a strong local and national supply chain for the industry.”

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