48 MW Scottish Offshore Wind Project Fully Installed

The 48MW Kincardine Offshore Wind project, touted as “the world’s largest installed floating offshore wind farm,” has been fully installed now. It is expected to generate enough electricity to power approximately 55,000 Scottish households.

Last year, Scotland narrowly missed a target to generate the equivalent of 100% of its electricity demand from renewables. The figure reached 97.4% from renewable sources in 2020.

The Kincardine floating offshore wind farm has been developed by Kincardine Offshore Wind, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pilot Offshore Renewables (POR). Cobra Wind, a subsidiary of ACS Group, is responsible for the engineering, design, supply, construction, and commissioning of the Kincardine floating wind farm.

The Scottish project is located around 15 km off the southeast coast of Aberdeenshire, at water depths ranging between 60m to 80m,  and is expected to generate up to 218GWh of clean electricity a year.

The Kincardine project has been constructed to ABS Class, whose services to the facility include verifying full compliance with the ABS Guide for Building and Classing Floating Offshore Wind Turbines and covering all phases of the project including design, fabrication, transport and service inspections.

ABS senior vice president for global offshore Matthew Tremblay said, “This exciting project demonstrates the potential of floating turbines and we are confident they will have an increasingly prominent role to play in the development of sustainable energy all over the world.”

As well as being constructed to ABS Class, each of the five floating turbines is flagged with the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI). ABS worked closely with the RMI to determine applicable IMO requirements and performed reviews as the RMI’s Recognized Organization.

Scotland has some of the most ambitious climate targets in the world, with its Climate Change Bill setting out a legally binding target of reaching net-zero emissions by 2045. By 2030, the country’s government wants renewable energy generation to account for 50% of energy demand across electricity, heat and transport.