Statoil gets Crown Estate lease for 30-MW Scottish floating wind park

The Crown Estate, the body managing the UK seabed, has granted a lease to Statoil’s (OSL:STL) 30-MW Hywind Scotland floating wind farm project.

Preliminary on-shore and near-shore works as part of the offshore wind project will start later in 2016, according to a Crown Estate press release. Installation of the five 6-MW floating wind turbines is planned to commenced in 2017, with first power expected towards the end of that year.

German industrial giant Siemens AG (FRA:SIE) will be supplying five of its SWT-6.0-154 direct drive turbines for the park.

The project, touted as the world’s largest floating wind farm, will see turbines deployed in deeper water than any previous offshore wind project around the coast of the UK.

Marine Scotland greenlit the scheme last October. In November, Statoil said it would proceed with investing about NOK 2 billion (USD 244m/EUR 216m) to build the Hywind floating offshore wind park. In March, the company announced that it would will install a 1-MWh energy storage system, dubbed Batwind, at the site. It is expected to mitigate the intermittency and optimise the output of the offshore wind park.

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