Joint statement from North Falls and Five Estuaries Offshore Wind Farms and National Grid: Projects welcome funding to enable opportunity to explore coordination feasibility

National Grid Electricity Transmission (Sea Link), North Falls (Offshore Wind Farm) and Five Estuaries (Offshore Wind Farm) have been working together to explore the potential for offshore coordination as part of the Offshore Transmission Network Review (OTNR) “Early Opportunities” workstream. The projects acting together in a consortium led by North Falls welcome the decision from the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) to provide grant funding through the Offshore Coordination Support Scheme (“OCSS”). The aim of the scheme is to develop and explore the feasibility of coordinated options for offshore transmission infrastructure.

The consortium applied for OCSS grant funding in February 2023. Following the grant announcement, the consortium will now undertake a series of studies and assessments to determine the feasibility, challenges and solutions to enable a co-ordinated offshore connection. This work will consider the economics, engineering & regulatory challenges, logistics and programme delivery aspects. The first step will be a high-level feasibility study which is expected in 2024.

All three participating projects are delighted to have been awarded the grant funding. This support enables the projects to consider an alternative coordinated connection whilst, in parallel, continuing to progress existing radial proposals to ensure no delay in building the much-needed infrastructure to support the UK’s net zero targets (should the offshore coordination be determined as not deliverable). As beneficiaries of the grant, we will be required to share key learnings on how a coordinated offshore transmission approach could work. 

The consortium strongly support the Government’s ambition to make the UK the world leader in offshore wind. The delivery of the UK Government’s ambition of 50GW of offshore wind by 2030 will create green skilled jobs, strengthen UK security of supply, provide clean renewable power to fight climate change and help to reduce energy bills for British consumers. 

_{5 December 2023}