UK Continues Offshore Wind Expansion with 6 GW Leasing Round Planned for Early 2027

The Crown Estate has unveiled plans for the UK’s Offshore Wind Leasing Round 6 to be held in the first half of 2027, targeting the development of at least 6 GW of new capacity.

The upcoming leasing process will focus on areas primarily located in the northeast of England. The sites are expected to be suitable for fixed-bottom offshore wind projects and will be brought forward following market and stakeholder engagement, including the National Energy System Operator’s (NESO) strategic plans for energy and for electricity networks, which will inform the exact capacity of the upcoming leasing round and refine specific site details and locations.

The Crown Estate said on 26 March that it had begun a programme of market engagement ahead of the official launch of a new leasing round, and is seeking market views on commercial approaches to the leasing round “to understand the potential viability and market appetite.”

The UK seabed manager said that it had also identified other areas of seabed opportunity across the South West, Wales and other regions which may form the basis of subsequent leasing rounds through the Crown Estate’s new seabed management tool, the Marine Delivery Routemap, which is being used for the first time in Round 6.

The Crown Estate’s previous leasing round, Round 5, focused on floating offshore wind in the Celtic Sea, covering areas off South Wales and South West England and targeting up to 4.5 GW of capacity. The round awarded seabed rights to Equinor, Gwynt Glas, and Ocean Winds, with individual project development areas of up to 1.5 GW. Agreements for lease were recently signed for all three Round 5 sites.

The announcement of seabed leasing Round 6 comes as the UK government confirmed that the next Contracts for Difference (CfD) auction, Allocation Round 8 (AR8), will open in July 2026, earlier than previously expected, and shortly after the UK awarded CfDs for 8.4 GW of offshore wind capacity in AR7, the largest volume secured in a UK auction to date.

The country currently has around 17 GW of installed offshore wind capacity, with a further 12 GW under construction, placing it among the world’s largest offshore wind markets.  

“The UK’s offshore wind sector has become the leading source of clean energy in the UK, providing enough power for the equivalent of half of all UK homes. It attracts billions of pounds of inward investment, supports tens of thousands of skilled jobs around the country, and boosts energy security by reducing reliance on fossil fuels”, the Crown Estate said on 26 March.

In December 2024, the UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) issued the Clean Power 2030 Action Plan, a roadmap to an (almost) fully clean power system by 2030 that uses clean sources for 95 per cent of Great Britain’s electricity generation and gas for no more than 5 per cent of total generation, with offshore wind having “a particularly important role as the backbone of the clean power system.”