Thistle Wind Partners (TWP), a consortium involving DEME, Qair and Aspiravi, has submitted the onshore scoping report for its Ayre Offshore Wind Farm to The Highland Council.
TWP’s Ayre project, located to the east of Orkney, will be a 1 GW floating wind farm, contributing to the UK and Scottish Government’s targets for accelerating floating wind capacity.
The submission of the onshore scoping report for the Ayre project marks ‘an important first milestone’ towards the required onshore planning permission for the project, according to TWP.
The report outlines the onshore infrastructure needed for the project and the approach to the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), which will support the submission for Planning Permission in Principle, targeted for early 2025.
The project’s grid connection point will be in Caithness, near the village of Spittal, with a landfall point at Sinclair’s Bay, all connected by underground cables.
TWP’s two ScotWind projects are on track to achieve a series of consenting and engineering milestones this year, the company said.
The offshore scoping report for Ayre is due to be submitted in spring 2024. For the Bowdun Offshore Wind Farm, which is a 1 GW fixed-foundation project off the coast of Aberdeenshire, both onshore and offshore scoping reports are scheduled for submission this summer.
The pre-front-end engineering designs (pre-FEEDs) for both projects are underway.
“Despite the projects facing a series of challenges over the course of 2023, they remain on track. We have navigated a way through these difficult times in the offshore wind sector thanks to active collaboration with the group of ScotWind developers and government agencies,” said Ian Taylor, Project Director at TWP.
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