German firm joins bidders for Scotwind projects

A German firm has teamed up with two fellow European energy businesses with a view to developing offshore wind projects around the Scottish coastline.

A facility off the coast of France. Picture: Valery Joncheray.

Renewable energy specialist BayWa, which has 75 staff in Scotland, has signed an exclusive deal to join the existing consortium of Belgian peer Elicio and French floating wind technology developer Ideol in the progression of a joint bid for the ScotWind leasing round recently launched by Crown Estate Scotland.

The tender process will see up to ten gigawatts of capacity awarded options to be developed over the next decade. Ideol has developed a proprietary floating foundation that has already been installed in French and Japanese waters. It is involved in a number of projects in development globally, including Eolmed, the Mediterranean’s first floating offshore wind farm.

Another example of floating wind technology. Picture: contributed.

Elicio has been active in the development of offshore wind projects for more than a decade and owns significant shareholdings in the Belgian offshore wind projects Norther – 370 megawatts (MW) – Rentel (309 MW) and SeaMade (487,2MW). The company brings experience in offshore wind-development, construction and asset-management, and is also an operator of more than 32 onshore wind farms in Europe.

Ideol chief executive Paul de la Guérivière said: “We are involved with projects all over the world, but we are really excited about the potential for floating offshore wind around Scotland. There are few countries in the world with a comparable resource or such a strong offshore energy supply chain, and we also believe we can make an important contribution to the ongoing energy transition in the North Sea.”

He also said the firm has demonstrated its floating wind technology capabilities both in France and Japan “and fully intend to duplicate this model in Scotland”.

Alain Janssens, chief executive of Elicio, said: “The combined and very complementary know-how of our three major companies will undoubtedly contribute to a competitive and risk-managed delivery of projects with a uniquely high local footprint.”

Matthias Taft, head of BayWa – which has 890 MW of onshore wind projects under management across the UK – stated that the firm is dedicated to “being part of the next chapter in the development of the Scottish offshore wind sector”.

He added: “We have a strong presence in Scotland after a decade in the onshore wind market and believe that now is the time to build on that foundation by growing into the offshore market, bringing further jobs, investment and supply chain opportunities in the process.” The launch of ScotWind – the first round of offshore wind leasing in Scottish waters in a decade – was announced last month.

SCOTSMAN.COM

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