The UK Government has announced investment of £160m into large-scale floating offshore wind infrastructure, with manufacturers and developers in Scotland and Wales afforded the opportunity to bid for a share of the funds.

It is hoped that such investment, boosted by additional private sector investment, will enable and foster the development of adequate port infrastructure, creating thousands of new jobs, and being cable of increasing the UK’s capacity to accelerate the mass-production of floating offshore wind turbines.  

In November 2020, the “Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution” (the “Plan”) was published by the UK Government, outlining several goals and ambitions in the UK’s pursuit to reach zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.  Among other key points, the Plan earmarks a quadrupling of the UK’s offshore wind capacity by the year 2030.  This ambitious target includes a goal of producing 1GW of “innovative floating offshore wind” from the windiest parts of the UK’s seas.  To put this into perspective, this target is nearly 9 times more than global volumes currently. 

The recent investment announcement could perhaps go some way to contributing to the 2030 offshore wind capacity target.