World’s biggest floating wind farm to be built off Scottish coast

The world’s biggest floating offshore wind farm is to be built off the coast of Scotland to power North Sea oil and gas platforms pumping fossil fuels to the UK.

The Green Volt wind farm will be made up of 35 turbines, generating 560MW of renewable energy and bringing in around £3bn in investment. The power is intended to replace the current natural gas and diesel energy used to power drilling operations.

The wind farm will have more than twice as many turbines as the next largest floating offshore plant, off the coast of Norway, which has 11. It will also generate six times as much energy, some of which will be transferred back to the grid to power homes in Scotland.

The project, near Peterhead in Aberdeenshire, comes as Britain’s North Sea oil and gas rigs shift to running off renewable power. Green Volt – a joint venture between Scotland’s Flotation Energy and Norway’s Vårgrønn, should reduce carbon emissions by about 1m tonnes per year.

Floating wind turbines lack the foundations of more typical fixed offshore wind developments in shallow waters.

Nicol Stephen, the chief executive of Flotation Energy, said: “This multibillion-pound development can now move forward confidently, creating hundreds of local jobs and proving that the UK and Scottish supply chain is ready to deliver commercial scale floating projects.”

Olav Hetland, the chief executive of Vårgrønn, said: “Floating wind is set to be a huge global market in the decades to come. By being a frontrunner, Scotland is now positioned to be home to world-leading expertise and a whole industry of new jobs.”