Site investigations are about to start at two locations in Scotland and the UK where Flotation Energy and its project partners plan to build the 480 MW Morecambe and the 1.4 GW Cenos offshore wind farms.
At the Morecambe site, located about 30 kilometres from the Lancashire coast, a deep-sea geotechnical survey is scheduled to begin in mid-July.
The survey vessel Horizon Geodiscovery will collect data from different locations within the Morecambe array area. The work is due to be completed by the end of October 2023, depending on weather conditions, with each sampling location to be surveyed for two or three days.
Around the same time, the vessel Glomar Supporter will be deployed at the Cenos floating wind farm site, located off Peterhead, some 200 kilometres offshore in the UK Central North Sea, where the vessel will be performing a geophysical and benthic survey.
The surveys at the Cenos site, set to run for approximately two months, will survey the proposed array site and export cable route to provide an understanding of potential archaeological features, habitats and UXO identification.
Flotation Energy is developing the 480 MW Morecambe project together with Cobra Instalaciones y Servicio. The project is one of the six offshore wind farms selected in the UK’s Round 4 offshore wind seabed leasing.
On the 1.4 GW Cenos floating wind farm, which is planned to power oil and gas platforms in the North Sea, Flotation Energy has teamed up with Vårgrønn, a joint venture between Eni’s Plenitude and the Norwegian energy investor HitecVision.
Earlier this year, the partners secured a lease in the Scottish INTOG (Innovation and Targeted Oil & Gas) round.
The Morecambe project is planned to have between 20 and 40 fixed-bottom turbines, while Cenos will consist of 70-100 floating turbines, each with a capacity of between 14 MW and 20 MW, according to information on the projects’ websites.