Plans for transmission infrastructure connecting two offshore wind Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs) to the Lancashire coast have been accepted for pre-examination by the UK government.
The Morgan Offshore Wind Project and the Morecambe Offshore Wind Farm are proposed wind farms slated for development in the Irish Sea. The two projects, which have a combined capacity of 2GW, are being developed by BP and German power producer EnBW under a joint venture, with the two firms also managing the transmission infrastructure project. The Morgan and Morecambe Offshore Wind Farms: Transmission Assets project seeks to connect the two to the UK’s power grid via undersea and underground cables.
The transmission infrastructure project and the two wind farms themselves are considered separate NSIPs, and are currently at different stages of the DCO application process. The application for the transmission infrastructure is now in the pre-examination phase, during which stakeholders and members of the public can register to provide comments to the planning inspectorate.
This phase is expected to last around three months, after which the application will enter the examination phase. During the examination phase, which could last as long as six months, anyone who has registered to comment will be asked to provide their opinion, and the Planning Inspectorate will consider the development proposals and ask questions of the developer. Meanwhile, both the Morgan and Morecambe wind farm proposals are in the examination stage of the planning process.
The proposed transmission infrastructure includes plans for up to six offshore cables connecting the two wind farms to the land and up to 12 400kV onshore cables, all of which will be buried below ground. No overhead pylons will be installed as part of the transmission development. As many as six offshore substation platforms and two new onshore substations will also be developed, with an additional connection to an existing National Grid substation at Penwortham, Lancashire being installed. The cables will make landfall between the towns of Blackpool and Lytham St Annes before heading inland past Blackpool Airport and towards Penwortham substation.
If DCOs are granted for both the wind farms and the associated transmission infrastructure, the developers state that construction could begin as soon as 2026, with a commercial start date for the project expected in 2028 or 2029.
This is not the first time in recent months that transmission infrastructure for an offshore wind farm has been classified as an NSIP. In late October, the transmission infrastructure connecting the Isle of Man’s first offshore wind farm to the UK was granted NSIP status by the UK government. The decision to classify the transmission infrastructure for the Moor Vannin wind farm, which is being developed by Ørsted, as an NSIP was made in order to “provide the certainty of a single, unified consenting process and fixed timescales”.
