THE scale of interest in windfarm licences off Scotland has been underlined after more international heavyweights said they had joined the bidding for acreage in the landmark ScotWind round.
The Maple Power venture formed by Canadian energy infrastructure business Enbridge and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board described the licensing round as an “industry leading and highly attractive opportunity”.
ScotWind is the first offshore wind auction to cover acreage off Scotland for a decade.
Maple Power is participating as part of the NextGen consortium, which is backed by investment giants Blackrock and Sumitomo.
Other members include Fife-based Quaybridge Scotland and Belgium’s Parkwind.
The consortium will face strong competition for licences in ScotWind which has generated interest around the world.
READ MORE: BP claims bid for Scottish windfarm licences could unlock £10bn investment
A range of giants drawn from the energy, industrial and financial sectors have entered the bidding for ScotWind licences.
Oil giants BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Eni, Total Energies and Equinor have submitted bids.
Scottish Hydroelectric owner SSE, ScottishPower and Orsted are in the running as is Australian investment bank Macquarie.
When ScotWind was launched in June last year Crown Estate Scotland said around 10 windfarms could be developed on the acreage concerned. It suggested this could unlock as much as £8 billion investment.
The organisation said ScotWind bidders would have to submit supply chain development statements.
ScotWind was extended in February after the last round covering the rest of the UK drew a very strong response.
READ MORE: Glasgow-based giant bids for windfarm licences with Shell
It closed to applications on Friday.
Parkwind operates four windfarms off Belgium and has a pipeline of projects in Ireland and Germany. Maple Power has interests in windfarms off Germany and France.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel