ORE Catapult - Free Virtual Launch of the Celtic Sea Cluster

Dr Steve Wyatt, Director of RDI at the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult and Chair of the Floating Wind Celtic Sea Cluster, would like to invite you to the free virtual launch of the Celtic Sea Cluster. The event will be broadcast on a live Teams feed from the Voco St Davids Hotel, Cardiff.

Attendance at the live event is extremely limited due to COVID restrictions and is at the organiser’s discretion.

The UK is on the cusp of a once in a lifetime opportunity to become world leaders in the deployment of floating wind with two primary sea areas, one being the Celtic Sea. Preliminary geospatial analysis suggests that the Celtic Sea wind resource could exceed 100GW. Political and regulator support is in place to meet the UK Government ambition of 1GW of floating wind by 2030 and the Crown Estate is planning a new leasing opportunity for early commercial-scale floating wind projects in the Celtic Sea. This will focus on projects of circa 300MW in scale - up to 3 times larger than any rights previously awarded to floating wind in the UK.

Development is already gaining pace in the Celtic Sea;

• Marine project developer Simply Blue Energy has partnered with TotalEnergies, as Blue Gem Wind to develop the 96MW Erebus and 100MW Valorous sites off the south coast of Wales.
• Simply Blue Energy has partnered with Shell to develop the 1GW Emerald project off the south coast of Ireland.
• Hexicon has partnered with Bechtel to develop a 30MW array on the wave hub site off the north coast of Cornwall.
• A joint venture between Cobra Instalaciones y Servicios and Flotation Energy will develop the 100MW White Cross project, located off the coast of Devon and Cornwall.
• The Llŷr 1 and Llŷr 2 projects, comprising two separate 100MW sites, each testing different technologies, will be located south of Pembroke, on the Welsh coast led by Floventis Energy, a newly established joint venture between SBM Offshore and Cierco.

Welsh Government and Cornwall & Isles of Scilly Local Enterprise Partnership with the support of Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult, Celtic Sea Power and Marine Energy Wales have been developing the concept for a Celtic Sea Cluster to help drive market creation for floating wind, accelerate supply chain readiness and develop a strategy for upgrading regional infrastructure. The Cluster will help the supply chain respond to the growing number of project developers examining sites in the Celtic Sea, the area of ocean situated off the coast of Cornwall, and between Wales and Ireland. After more than a year in planning the Cluster is now ready to be launched.

At this event Ministers, together with speakers from Welsh Government, Cornwall & Isle of Scilly Local Enterprise Partnership, the Crown Estate, and Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult will describe the economic benefits that could be derived from deployment of floating wind in the Celtic Sea, discuss the regulatory issues, describe what the cluster is and how it will operate, and explain how you can get involved and help address the challenges facing the sector.

By registering you agree to your details being held by the ORE Catapult on behalf of the Cluster and acknowledge the online event will be recorded.

Your registration will be noted and a Teams link for online attendance will be issued after registration closes on 24th September 2021.

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