With all the gloom in UK offshore wind due to financing difficulties and delays to the Electricity Market Reform, the demonstrator announcements from the Scottish government and the Crown Estate have provided a well-timed lift.
Scotland is to offer 2.5 Renewables Obligation Certificates (ROCs) for offshore demonstration sites and 3.5 for floating turbines and similar technologies.
The Crown Estate is also seeking to help these latter projects, along with other parts that don’t need grid connections, such as substructures and cables, by holding a dedicated leasing round for demonstration arrays of up to 100MW,
The fact that both moves were announced on the same day was no accident.
