Round 3 Negotiations
For further information please visit:
Press release
Round 3 developers
Radar Interference R&D
The Crown Estate is pleased to announce the launch of a £5.15 million research and development project looking at solutions to the problem of radar interference and wind turbines. The project involves a nineteen-month R&D programme to mitigate the effects of wind turbines on the NATS En Route primary radar infrastructure, working with Raytheon Canada, the suppliers of the NATS systems. The £5.15m fund is made up of £1.6m from wind companies, £2m from The Crown Estate and £1.55m from DECC.
Aviation radar objections are one of the largest causes of wind planning applications being rejected or withdrawn in the UK.
This project is part of our enabling actions work to accelerate and de-risk the development of Round 3.
Sediment Gap Analysis Study
As part of the Round 3 enabling actions The Crown Estate commissioned ABP Marine Environmental Research Ltd and British Geological Survey to complete a UK-wide sediment gap analysis study. The resulting document (and accompanying GIS shapefiles), available below, provide a catalogue of presently available UK-wide data related to the physical properties of the seabed.
The shapefiles include data availability (but not the data itself) of seabed soundings, discrete sediment samples, shallow geophysical profiles and shallow cores (e.g. vibrocores and boreholes). This is data which is presently available from the British Geological Survey.
For further information please contact:
For the PDF document and GIS shapefiles, please follow the links:
R3 Zone Boundary Adjustments
The Round 3 zone boundaries have been slightly adjusted in order to align them with relevant boundaries as described below. We reiterate that these zones are defined to identify indicative areas of opportunity for offshore windfarms and that additional planning considerations will apply to individual projects within the zones.
| Zone | Name | Alignment |
| 1 | Moray Firth | Inner limit aligned to the 2008 UK Hydrographic Office 12 nautical mile territorial sea limit (12NM). As the 12NM limits are calculated from drying heights and therefore continually shift, the 2008 limit will remain as the definitive inner boundary of this zone. Change in zone area = -0.35%. |
| 2 | Firth of Forth | Inner limit aligned to the 2008 UK Hydrographic Office 12NM limit. As the 12NM limits are calculated from drying heights and therefore continually shift, the 2008 limit will remain as the definitive inner boundary of this zone. Change in zone area = -0.24%. |
| 3 | Dogger Bank | Outer limit aligned to UK continental shelf limit as defined by the UK Hydrographic Office. Change in zone area = +1.22%. |
| 4 | Hornsea | Outer limit aligned to UK continental shelf limit as defined by the UK Hydrographic Office. Change in zone area = +0.83%. |
| 5 | Norfolk | Outer limit aligned to UK continental shelf limit as defined by the UK Hydrographic Office. South east limit aligned to the International Maritime Organisation routing. Change in zone area = +2.84%. |
| 6 | Hastings | No change. |
| 7 | West Isle of Wight | No change. |
| 8 | Bristol Channel | No change. |
| 9 | Irish Sea | North West limit aligned to the 2008 UK Hydrographic Office 12 nautical mile territorial sea limit for the Isle of Man. Change in zone area = +2.22%. |
For the map PDF and GIS shapefiles, please follow the links:
Aerial Bird Surveys
The Crown Estate, statutory consultees and development partners have all identified bird surveys as a critical to reduce risk of failing to deliver Round 3 objectives on time. The data will form a crucial role in the consenting of windfarm projects and is particularly important as it will bring forward the delivery of consents and therefore the development of 25 GW of offshore wind by 2020. If they are not carried out now the Round 3 programme would be at risk of a one year delay.
We indicated in our ‘Invitation to Negotiate’ that we envisaged surveys of birds as a key enabling action for Round 3. Bidders responding to the invitation to negotiate identified birds as a clear priority for data collection and expected The Crown Estate to play a role in obtaining this data. The early collection of bird survey data is a particular priority for those zones where existing data coverage is poor and / or it is anticipated that further characterisation is expected prior to finalisation of zone development plans. These aerial surveys are collecting data on birds and marine mammals.
WWT Consulting, the commercial arm of the Wildfowl and Wetland Trust, will carry out the surveys between May and August 2009, collecting data on the number and distribution of birds in the Round 3 zones. The surveys will be taking place in various offshore locations around the UK:
- Firth of Forth (zone 2)
- Dogger Bank (zone 3)
- The North Sea off Hornsea (zone 4)
- The North Sea off Norfolk (zone 5)
- The Irish Sea (zone 9).
Each area will be surveyed three times to cover the following periods:
| Survey Period | Description | Dates |
| 1 | Breeding: incubation | 5 May – 4 June |
| 2 | Breeding: chick rearing | 5 June – 9 July |
| 3 | Post fledging / moult | 10 July – 31 August |
The data will be made available to our development partners in Round 3 to assist in the timely delivery of offshore windfarm consents. It is possible that the data will be published in the future. The key statutory consultees have all endorsed these surveys.
We intend to carry out a tender process for a wintering aerial survey in the coming months. After the wintering survey work it is likely that development partners will need to continue to collect data on birds and mammals within the zone to enable to them to conduct an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). Moving forward it is likely that surveys of the Round 3 areas will continue uninterrupted for a number of years, as consenting is eventually replaced by construction and post-construction monitoring.
Supply Chain Gap Analysis to Support Round 3 Released
The Crown Estate is greatly encouraged by BVG’s analysis of the supply chain, assessing what support needs are required for the development of offshore wind power projects. It does, however, highlight the supply chain challenges that government, the industry and ourselves face in order to achieve the ambitious target of 25 GW from Round 3 by 2020 set by government.
The BVG study, commissioned by The Crown Estate, is a crucial step in enabling the development of a supply chain which can meet the demands of Round 3. In this study the individual components of the supply chain are drawn together for the first time into a projection of supply chain productivity. Interviews with industry representatives provided a candid backdrop to these projections making clear the scale of the challenge.
Working with the supply chain is just one element of The Crown Estate’s contribution to the government’s targets. We are greatly encouraged that the government is standing by its 25 GW target for Round 3 set in November 2007 by the Business Secretary John Hutton. While this will be subject to the outcome of the SEA consultation, the nine zones identified by The Crown Estate provide plenty of scope for flexibility. This should enable the various competing interests to be satisfied while ensuring that the government’s CO2 mitigation commitments remain on track. This is crucial for the confidence that will be required by investors, the supply chain and the providers of vital infrastructure.
Meeting this target is important to the UK’s energy mix, the security of energy supply, meeting international CO2 obligations and creating a world class industrial capability that creates jobs and new businesses across the UK.
For the study PDF, please follow the link:
|
