West of Orkney wind farm on track to submit applications after surveys completed
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
Offshore surveys have been completed as part of work by developers proposing to build up to 125 turbines off the north coast of Sutherland.
The West of Orkney wind farm is earmarked for a site around 30km from Orkney and 25km from the north Sutherland coast, with applications set to be submitted next year.
In January, it secured the rights to an area of seabed from the Crown Estate Scotland in the competitive ScotWind process.
The surveys covered geophysical and ecological surveys of the seabed across 657 square kilometres which make up the project area.
Stephen Kerr, project director of the West of Orkney wind farm, said: “We are delighted the seabed survey work has been completed safely, on schedule and within budget, with no lost time incidents.
"This leaves the project ideally placed to advance our wind farm design and progress with our consent applications next year as planned.
“The offshore geophysical survey work covered an area of leased seabed 1.5 times the size of Edinburgh and, during the six-month programme, the main survey vessel travelled more than 17,000 kilometres.”
The offshore seabed surveys began in April, with seabed survey specialists Ocean Infinity using their vessels MV Relume and MV Geo-Ranger, operating out of Scrabster Harbour.
Ocean Infinity was also responsible for the shallow geotechnical work on the cable corridor while the near-shore geophysical survey was completed by Spectrum using the vessels Spectrum 1 and Spectrum Nyquist and a photogrammetry aerial drone.
Three seasons of bird and marine mammal surveys were also completed in September.
The development, which will have an expected capacity of 2GW, is scheduled to export its first power in 2029.
The West of Orkney wind farm is a joint venture comprising Corio Generation, TotalEnergies and Renewable Infrastructure Development Group (RIDG).
Up to five export cables to Caithness are envisaged, with a grid connection coming ashore at a point to the west of Thurso and continuing to the substation at Spittal.
A series of pre-application public consultation events that will allow local residents to hear more about the project and make comments are planned for later this month.
These are scheduled for Spittal village hall on Monday, November 28 (4pm to 8pm), Bettyhill village hall on Tuesday, November 29 (3pm to 7.30pm), and North Coast Visitor Centre in Thurso on Wednesday, November 30 (3pm to 7.30pm).
These will follow on from four events at Orkney venues the previous week. Members of the project team will be on hand to answer questions.
