Crown Estate Scotland has awarded Flotation Energy and Vårgrønn exclusive rights to operate up to 1.9GW of floating offshore wind capacity in two projects, Green Volt and Cenos.

The capacity has been awarded to two companies under a lease round for Crown Estate Scotland's Innovation and Targeted Oil and Gas offshore wind project, which will provide clean energy to oil and gas platforms.

Nicol Stephen, chief executive of Flotation Energy, said: “We are delighted to have secured subsea rights for two of our North Sea decarbonization projects. These floating wind farms will directly replace industrial-scale gas turbines with renewable energy from our wind farms, making a huge contribution to reducing CO2 emissions from offshore oil and gas platforms, while also becoming a long-term source of renewable electricity for millions of people. Infrastructure assets for Scottish households for decades to come.

The Green Volt and Cenos wind farms, expected to come online in 2027 and 2028, respectively, will help electrify and decarbonize oil and gas platforms. The renewable energy provided by offshore wind facilities will replace gas turbines for power generation.

The two offshore wind farms will also deliver 7TWh of green, renewable electricity to the UK National Grid each year. It is estimated that these projects will have the capacity to offset 3 million tons of carbon emissions per year, while supporting the commercialization of floating offshore wind technology.

Stephen added that the scale of these floating wind projects is huge. They will deliver billions of pounds of new infrastructure investment and help create thousands of local jobs, providing a huge boost to Scottish supply chains. Today's announcement enables us to bring renewable electricity to offshore platforms ahead of the end of the decade. Our challenge now is to advance the delivery of these exciting projects as quickly as possible.Editor/XingWentao