- The Electricity System Operator (ESO) has unveiled Beyond 2030: Celtic Sea, its recommended design.
- The Beyond 2030: Celtic Sea design creates opportunities for the South Wales and South West regions to continue to play an important part in Great Britain’s green industrial revolution.
The Electricity System Operator (ESO) has unveiled Beyond 2030: Celtic Sea, its recommended design to connect up to 4.5GW of floating offshore wind renewable energy capacity, enough green power for over four million homes.
The recommended design connects up to 3GW into two locations in South Wales and up to 1.5GW into the South West of England, with each of the three proposed offshore wind farms (also known as Project Development Areas, or PDAs) having its connection to the onshore electricity network.
The proposals are for one high-voltage direct current (HVDC) connection into a potential New South Wales Connection Node and two connections utilising high-voltage alternating current (HVAC) technology into Carmarthenshire and North Devon.
Several shortlisted designs were rigorously assessed against four design objectives – impact on local communities and the environment, cost to the consumer, deliverability, and operability – allowing the ESO to arrive at a recommended design that carefully balances these considerations. The recommendation presents less impact on the environment and community than others considered during the design process, and no new overhead lines are to connect the offshore wind.
The proposals enable The Crown Estate’s Celtic Sea Floating Offshore Wind Leasing Round 5, a nationally significant 4.5 GW of floating offshore wind power that will connect directly to the transmission network— one of the largest floating wind initiatives in the world.
The Celtic Sea design is unique to other network design exercises previously undertaken by the ESO as developers have yet to bid for the opportunity to develop in the three areas of seabed identified by The Crown Estate for this leasing round. This new approach to sequencing will allow developers to make a more informed bid based on the network recommendations, reducing risk.
It also allows the ESO to take a new approach to the connections queue for this Round 5 capacity by effectively ringfencing the 4.5GW in advance. This allows us to proceed efficiently with the connection contract process after TCE awards the seabed Agreements for Lease.
The ESO has undertaken this assessment to continue its Holistic Network Design (HND) publications Pathway to 2030 and Beyond 2030, which charted a course to facilitate up to 86GW of offshore wind up to and throughout the 2030s.
The Beyond 2030: Celtic Sea design creates opportunities for the South Wales and South West regions to continue to play an important part in Great Britain’s green industrial revolution. The connections into the region catalyse future coordination with green energy developments in those areas. The ESO worked with representatives from local councils across South Wales and the South West to discuss pioneering exercises and invite feedback as part of the design development.
Following the proposals, the ESO will work with the host transmission owner (TO) – National Grid Electricity Transmission (NGET) in England and Wales – to progress relevant works for this recommendation as it advances into the detailed network design stage.