Pre-Consent Surveys

Offshore Wind Leasing Round 5 aims to establish a new floating wind sector in the Celtic Sea off the coast of South Wales and South West England.

The delivery of new floating offshore wind in the Celtic Sea requires a careful balance between protecting the natural environment and a variety of competing activities within the area. In recognition of the need to bring floating wind on-stream as soon as possible, in support of the UK's energy transition, The Crown Estate is aiming to accelerate and de-risk the process for this leasing round.

This is why, in April 2022, The Crown Estate announced its investment in a multi-million-pound programme of technical and environmental marine surveys in the Celtic Sea.

By investing in these at an early stage and with plans to make the data freely available to successful bidders, The Crown Estate is aiming to accelerate the delivery of projects, making it easier for developers to take early decisions and manage risk, while supporting future project level Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) as part of the planning process.

The Crown Estate has been working with its technical advisors, global marine consultants ABPMer and DORIS, as well as engaging with other marine stakeholders, including statutory nature conservation bodies to develop a programme of surveys which will deliver reliable, and useful datasets for developers.

This activity builds on The Crown Estate’s ongoing commitment to working with a wide range of partners and experts to co-ordinate seabed activity, and building data and evidence to inform how it can sustain a wide variety of industries and marine life for the long term.

The Crown Estate has announced the award of the following contracts:

• In December 2022, a contract for metocean surveys was awarded to leading experts Partrac to acquire valuable data on wind, wave, and current patterns over an initial twelve-month period.

• In June 2023, contracts were signed with leading specialists Fugro for geophysical surveys. Works were conducted through the summer of 2023 and will continue in the spring of 2024. The survey vessel teams are using towed and hull-mounted sensors to collate information on the properties of the seabed and sub-seabed.

• In September 2023, the most recent phase of work started with one of the UK’s leading digital aerial surveyors, HiDef. Bird and marine mammal Digital Aerial Surveys (DAS) will provide data to help establish the abundance and distribution of seabirds and other birds that may be encountered at sea, as well as gathering evidence of marine mammals and other megafauna such as basking sharks, turtles and ocean sunfish. The two-year agreement has already seen the first specially equipped aeroplanes take to the skies.

The Crown Estate is pleased to publish the scopes and specifications for these awarded pre-consent survey contracts. For future works yet to be contracted, scopes and specifications will be shared in due course.

A technical note which outlines the development of the specifications is included on the download page.