Developers have submitted the environmental impact assessment for the major Ossian floating offshore wind farm with the Scottish Government.
The wind farm, a joint-venture between SSE Renewables, Marubeni Corporation and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP), would be among the largest in the world when completed with a capacity of 3.6GW, enough to power up to 6 million homes annually.
The site of the proposed project is 331 square miles (857 sq km), more than four times the size of Aberdeen, around 52 miles (84km) off the Aberdeenshire coast.
The submission of the EIA comes after three years of consultation and investigation work.
Ossian’s development lead, Rich Morris, said: “We have submitted a comprehensive environmental impact assessment report to the Scottish Government’s Marine Directorate, and we’re committed to continuing engagement with the statutory consultees and wider stakeholder community.
“We are confident this submission will support the timely delivery of the UK’s largest floating offshore wind farm ensuring Ossian is ready to take full advantage of ongoing grid reforms and National Grid ESO’s move to a ‘first ready, first connected’ model.
“We have worked hard to reach this significant milestone, which is crucial in paving the way for a decarbonised future and supporting the Scottish and UK governments’ net zero targets.”
Data gathering
Ossian says it has consulted with over 30 organisations including regulatory and industry bodies to ensure the application reflects their views.
Extensive surveys have also been carried out to gather copious amounts of data relating to the wind farm array, including a collaboration with ScotWind developers to document the habits of bird populations in the North Sea region.
The survey involved flying four aircrafts simultaneously once a month to collect images across an 11,550 square miles area of the North Sea, which took 690 hours to complete.
Earlier this year, Ossian completed a year-long metocean data gathering study this year, which collected information relating to wave height, currents and tides.
The data collected will be used to understand the engineering properties of the seabed across the site.
In November, Ossian also became the first ScotWind floating offshore wind farm to complete geotechnical surveys. All studies that were conducted are key parts of the assessment, which is required in order to submit the application for a marine license that relates to offshore renewable energy developments.
Public consultation on the consent application for the Ossian offshore wind project will take place from July 23 to September 3.
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