ScotWind offshore auction raises £700m

An auction of seabed plots for major offshore wind projects around the Scottish coast has netted £700m.

Seventeen projects covering a total of 7,000km2 have been chosen in the first such leasing round in a decade.

Successful applicants include Scottish Power Renewables, which offered nearly £144m for one floating farm and one fixed wind project off the coast.

Other winners include Shell New Energies, which will pay £86m in option fees for a floating project.

BP Alternative Energy Investments and SSE Renewables will each pay £85,900,000 in fees for two sites.

The auction process was overseen by Crown Estate Scotland, with funds raised from the process going to the Scottish government.

The winners have now been offered option agreements which reserve the rights to specific areas of seabed.

They include 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 chief executive Simon Hodge said: "Today's results are a fantastic vote of confidence in Scotland's ability to transform our energy sector.

"In addition to the environmental benefits, this also represents a major investment in the Scottish economy, with around £700m being delivered straight into the public finances and billions of pounds worth of supply chain commitments."

CES had said it is 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.

The auction was originally meant to close at the end of March last year, but was delayed after a parallel English and Welsh auction resulted in far higher prices than expected.

At risk of losing out on hundreds of millions of pounds if it stuck to its original auction price guidelines, CES raised the cap for the auction bids from £10,000 to £100,000 per square kilometre.

The Scottish government has set a target of reaching net-zero emissions by 2045.