Fluor consortium wins Scottish wind farm rights

Seagreen Wind Energy, a Fluor and Scottish and Southern Energy plc joint venture has been awarded exclusive rights by The Crown Estate to develop 3,4 GW offshore wind farm in the Firth of Fourth, off the coast of Scotland, UK.

The proposed site for the farm is located 22 km from the east coast of Scotland and covers an area of 2852 km². Once constructed, the wind farm will almost double Scotland's entire existing renewable energy capability.

Secretary of State for Energy and Climate, Minister Ed Miliband said, "Our island has one of the best wind energy resources in Europe and today's news shows we're creating the right conditions for the energy industry to invest in harnessing it. This is one of the strongest signals yet that the UK is locked irreversibly into a low carbon, energy secure prosperous future."

Fluor Corporation's senior vice president and head of its infrastructure business line, Patrick Flaherty said, "We are extremely pleased to have reached this stage in the process and look forward to working closely with our partners in this venture to realise the full development potential of the zone.

"The award provides an opportunity to utilise our engineering and technical expertise to assist the government and our clients in reducing carbon emissions and increasing the UK's supply of green energy."

A statement from Seagreen said the company will now start work on the environmental assessment and technical feasibility phase of the development. This will be followed by securing supply chain commitments and structuring the financing for the project.

Fluor does not anticipate booking the first project of this development into its order backlog before 2015.