Salamander, a joint venture between Simply Blue Group, Ørsted, and Subsea7, has selected MarineSpace, an ERM Group company, to lead the environmental impact assessment (EIA) for the floating offshore wind project off northeast Scotland.
As part of the work, engineering consultant NIRAS has been contracted by Salamander to lead the Habitats Regulations Appraisal (HRA), and Brown & May Marine Ltd will provide commercial fisheries support.
The Salamander offshore wind project, 35 kilometers off Peterhead, will be a contributor in delivering the U.K. government’s target of 5 GW of operational floating offshore wind by 2030.
The project is designed to provide the Scottish supply chain with an early capacity development opportunity, enabling it to play a much greater role in subsequent large-scale floating offshore wind buildout.
“This is another milestone in the development of the project,” said Huw Bell, Salamander project director. “We are working with very experienced companies that are supporting us with our ambitions in creating a project that play a significant role in how the industry delivers floating wind going forward.”
Salamander will deploy floating offshore wind technologies to support the cost reduction and learning journey needed for the commercial deployment of floating offshore wind.
Salamander recently awarded the pre-FEED foundation design to Ocergy for its OCG-Wind foundation technology. Salamander is intended to be progressed through the innovation track of Crown Estate Scotland’s Innovation and Targeted Oil and Gas (INTOG) leasing round. The INTOG round will grant seabed leases through an auction process, which will be split into two pots — one for smaller scale innovation projects of less than 100 MW and one for larger projects linked to oil and gas infrastructure.
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