Burges Salmon, a leading UK law firm, has advised Seagreen Wind Energy Ltd (Seagreen, owned jointly by SSE Renewables and Fluor) in receiving consent from Angus Council for the onshore infrastructure required for Phase 1 of its 3,500MW Firth of Forth Offshore Wind Zone.
Planning permission in principle was granted by Angus Council’s Development Standards Committee for the application on 26 November, which includes 19km of underground cables to transmit power from a landfall location at South Carnoustie on the Angus Coast to the existing electricity substation at Tealing, North of Dundee. The plans also include a new substation at Tealing to allow over 1 Gigawatt of power to connect to the National Grid system.
This is the first consent for major works granted for any project under the Round 3 seabed leasing process, under which 9 Zones were awarded by The Crown Estate in December 2009 around UK waters to offshore wind farm developers.
Julian Boswall, Planning partner at Burges Salmon, which specialises in advising on large scale energy projects, said: “We are delighted to have been able to assist Seagreen on this important milestone towards delivering Scotland’s largest renewable energy project, the Firth of Forth Zone.”
Seagreen submitted applications to Marine Scotland in October 2012 for two separate offshore wind farms, Project Alpha and Project Bravo, located 27km and 38km respectively at their closest points from the Angus coastline. These Phase 1 wind farms would each have a maximum capacity of 525 Megawatts and accommodate up to 75 wind turbines. Seagreen recently submitted an addendum to these applications in October 2013 and the consent decision rests with Scottish Ministers. Burges Salmon is also advising Seagreen on these applications.