Scotland is shaping up plans to launch a new, standalone offshore leasing round targeting smaller-scale floating wind farms linked to North Sea oil & gas fields, as part of accelerating plans to decarbonise hydrocarbon production in its waters.

The Crown Estate Scotland (CES) – which last week announced it would begin consultation with the energy industry on special purpose sub-100MW projects as part of it so-called Innovation and Targeted Oil & Gas Decarbonisation (INTOGD) – said the round would be opened “in early 2022”.