The UK Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero has granted consent for the Outer Dowsing offshore wind farm, being developed by TotalEnergies, Corio Generation and affiliates, and Gulf Development.
The Development Consent Order (DCO) is for a 1.5 GW project consisting of up to 100 wind turbines and associated offshore and onshore infrastructure.
The Outer Dowsing wind turbine array site is located 54 kilometres off the Lincolnshire Coast, from where the export cable will run to a landfall site near Anderby Marsh, north of Skegness. From there, underground onshore cables will carry the power to a new onshore substation at Surfleet Marsh in South Lincolnshire.
The 1.5 GW offshore wind farm is one of six offshore wind projects selected in the UK’s round 4 offshore wind seabed leasing in 2022, which signed agreements with the Crown Estate in January 2023.
The joint venture between TotalEnergies, Corio Generation and Gulf Development submitted the DCO application to the UK Planning Inspectorate in March 2024.
A decision on application was expected on 10 October 2025; however, the Secretary of State had decided to push back the statutory deadline to 10 February 2026 to allow more time for consultation and feedback.
“The consent award for Outer Dowsing Offshore Wind comes after four years of hard work by some of the most talented individuals in the industry and is a testament to the thorough and diligent approach undertaken by the project team”, said Sharn Ward , Head of Europe for Corio Generation.
According to the project partners, Outer Dowsing is expected to create GBP 2 billion (approximately EUR 2.3 billion) of UK investment during its lifetime, which could extend past 35 years, with over 1,000 UK-based skilled jobs estimated to be created during the construction period, and hundreds during the operations and maintenance (O&M) phase.