Bid for major Orkney offshore wind project announced

Rights are being sought to develop offshore wind projects

French oil giant TotalEnergies is part of a consortium that has submitted a bid to build a major new offshore wind project off Orkney.

Total has joined with Macquarie's Green Investment Group and Scottish developer RIDG on a proposal to build the West of Orkney Windfarm.

They claim it has the potential to power more than two million homes.

The two-gigawatt proposal is currently being assessed by the Crown Estate Scotland (CES).

The consortium said the bid was the culmination of five years of talks.

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These have involved the consortium and interested parties in Orkney and Caithness, including Orkney Harbour Authority, the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney, and Scrabster Harbour Trust.

The bid is part of the ScotWind leasing auction, which is offering the rights to develop offshore wind projects on the seabed.

The auction is the first of its kind for a decade.

It covers areas of the seabed, including parts of the North Sea to the east of Angus, the outer Moray Firth, west of Orkney, east of Shetland and north-west of both Lewis and Islay.

CES said it hoped that as much as 10GW of new generating capacity could be built over the next decade as a result of the project - enough to power every home in Scotland.

An artist's impression of the proposed Scapa Deep Water Quay, which would be involved in the project

Stephen Kerr, the West of Orkney Windfarm project director, said ScotWind had created the opportunity for a global industry to tap into "Europe's best wind resource", and the consortium aimed to build on "strong local relationships".

He said: "The upcoming round of offshore wind projects are a terrific opportunity for ports in Caithness and Orkney to win significant long-term contracts in the installation and operational phase of these major infrastructure schemes."