Scottish wind sale nets nearly $1bn with Shell, BP among winners

Scottish wind sale nets nearly $1bn with Shell, BP among winners

Reuters/ London

BP, Shell and utility Iberdrola were among the winners of seabed rights to develop Scottish offshore wind projects, in an auction which raised nearly 700mn pounds ($958mn) for public spending.

Competition for offshore wind sites has intensified as governments and investors have woken up to the urgency of cutting carbon emissions, with oil majors making high bids.

Crown Estate Scotland, which manages the Scottish seabed, said yesterday that proceeds from the first such leasing deal in around a decade will go to the devolved Scottish government. The 17 winning Scottish projects will produce nearly 25GW in the next decade, helping to provide low-carbon power in line with a UK-wide goal to cut emissions to net zero by mid-century.

A gigawatt equates to roughly two coal-fired power plants and is enough to power 750,000 homes in Britain, where the overall power demand can be between 20-47GW per day, depending on the season. Around 35% of the country’s electricity generation is already generated from renewables. Power generated in Scotland, where the population is much smaller, is brought ashore on the Scottish coast via underwater cables and connected to the national electricity grid. Crown Estate Scotland said there were 74 applications