Energy transition gets real as Scotland’s INTOG process opens for bidding

Crown Estate Scotland has today announced the opening of registration for its new Innovation and Targeted Oil and Gas (INTOG) leasing round. Registration is open until 24 August, at which point bidders have three months to submit a bid. Split into two parts, bidders can either propose Innovation sites to help aid learning for the scale up of floating offshore wind, or larger (targeted oil and gas) sites providing power to oil and gas platforms around Scotland’s coastline.

Projects coming forward are expected to be floating offshore wind projects, meaning that Scotland could soon have a pipeline of approximately 20GW of floating offshore wind in the next decade. That scale of growth puts Scotland and the UK at the forefront of the global development of floating offshore wind.

The INTOG announcement follows the successful conclusion of the ScotWind leasing round in January 2022. Since then, the Scottish Offshore Wind Energy Council (SOWEC) has been working with ScotWind developers to coordinate sector efforts to support Scottish supply chain growth. Developers have signed up to a Collaborative Framework Charter and are working closely together to look at supply chain opportunities around Scottish ports.

SOWEC industry co-chair Brian McFarlane said: ““INTOG is a great opportunity to build on the success of ScotWind, helping both to fast track innovation at scale, and add to Scotland’s already world-leading pipeline.

“INTOG also helps build ever closer links between oil and gas operators and offshore wind developers to accelerate Scotland’s energy transition.

“However, more needs to be done to ensure Scotland’s supply chain and ports are ready. SOWEC is already working with all ScotWind developers to look at options for Strategic Investment, and would hope to be able to bring successful INTOG bidders into this important work in due course.”