Full Steam Ahead on New US and UK Projects; Tender Updates from Norway, Australia and Germany

While several offshore wind farms are currently under construction or about to enter that phase worldwide, the spotlight over the last couple of weeks has been on the milestones being reached on some of the most significant projects out there now, from the world's largest offshore wind farm that is being built in the UK to the first wind farm offshore New York.

This week, we also saw a few significant updates on newly awarded sites and national offshore wind tenders that are bound to ensure further increase in the global installed offshore wind capacity.

All monopile foundations have been installed at the South Fork Wind Farm site offshore New York, the state’s first offshore wind farm. The 132 MW offshore wind farm will comprise twelve Siemens Gamesa's 11 MW wind turbines, whose installation is expected to start later this summer.

In Massachusetts, the first large-scale offshore wind farm to be approved for construction, Vineyard Wind 1, is about to have its first GE Haliade-X 13 MW wind turbine up as the installation vessel Sea Installer is on its way to the project site.

Across the pond, what will become the world's biggest offshore wind farm is also currently seeing its first wind turbines, also the GE Haliade-X 13 MW model, being erected after the jack-up vessel Voltaire left the Able Seaton Port with the first batch at the beginning of this month.

The Neart na Gaoithe offshore wind farm in Scotland, which already began wind turbine installation last month, is also progressing towards completion as the third jacket foundation installation campaign is commencing with the giant crane vessel Thialf deployed to carry out the work.

As these and other projects continue with construction, new project sites and capacities are being, or about to be, awarded through national offshore wind tenders.

In Germany, the Federal Network Agency (BSH) has awarded further four offshore wind sites, totalling 1.8 GW in capacity, for a total of EUR 784 million. After awarding four sites to BP and TotalEnergies for a whopping EUR 12.6 billion through a dynamic bidding process last month, the BSH now allocated the four centrally pre-investigated areas to RWE (3 sites) and Waterkant Energy (1 site). It is worth noting that Vattenfall holds step-in rights for one of the sites that were awarded to RWE, which the Swedish company can exercise until 14 September.

Meanwhile, Norway has postponed the award of areas in its first offshore wind tender for next year as the Norwegian government is waiting to obtain approval for state aid from the EFTA Surveillance Authority (ESA). Since the government expects the state aid approval process to take longer than expected, the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy pushed back the deadline for applications to 1 November, which also means the first areas can be allocated in early 2024, instead of by the end of this year, as initially planned.

A few days ago, Australia opened the application period for feasibility licences for the recently declared offshore wind zone in the Pacific Ocean off the Hunter, New South Wales, which can accommodate up to 5 GW of offshore wind capacity. Developers have until 14 November to submit applications for the feasibility permits, with construction allowed to begin only after the feasibility stage is completed and all subsequent approvals have been obtained.

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