Ossian Newsletter January 2023 - Look back at 2022 highlights
The joint venture partnership between SSE Renewables, Marubeni Corporation and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners celebrates a year since its successful application to develop an offshore wind project in the E1 Zone, awarded as part of the ScotWind leasing round. In Ossian’s first newsletter, the project shares key milestones from the past year with a look ahead to 2023!
Highlights from 2022
Ossian have commenced consultation with a range of stakeholders throughout 2022 covering a variety of key topics. In Q1 2023 Ossian will submit an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Scoping Request to MS-LOT who will undertake formal consultation on the Scoping Report to determine the focus of the ongoing EIA.
Underpinning commitments made in the Supply Chain Development Strategy (SCDS) there have been a series of engagements with suppliers as well as ports and harbours.
Following signature of the collaborative framework agreement the project has been supporting with the realisation of the strategic investment model aimed at facilitating a collaborative approach to investment in Scottish fabrication facilities and port infrastructure.
The team attended the Forth and Tay Supply Chain Event, organised by SOWEC in Dundee, discussing the current programme with contractors and identifying future opportunities.
In November Ossian announced the project capacity increase from 2.6GW to up to 3.6GW
The year ended with Ossian signing the lease for a new office, located in the heart of Glasgow’s city centre on Bothwell Street.
Surveys within the Ossian Site Boundary
23 months of bird and marine mammal digital aerial surveys
5,300-line km of geophysical survey
Benthic grab sampling and seabed imagery, and epibenthic trawls across the site boundary
Floating LiDAR will be deployed for 24 months and Metocean buoys deployed for 12 months
Winter vessel traffic survey
Ossian Office:
2-10 Bothwell Street, Glasgow
© Ross Flatman, Principal Metocean Engineer, Patrac. The deployment of FLiDAR and Metocean equipment at the wind farm in August 2022.
Kateryna McKinnon, Development Manager, Crown Estate Scotland said:
“We’re pleased to see projects, such as Ossian, progressing through these early stages of development – and keeping Scotland on course to maximise the opportunity for offshore wind to deliver value at an industrial scale.”
David Willson, Senior Project Manager, Ossian said:
“Ossian celebrated a variety of milestones in 2022; commencing surveys at the wind farm site, announcing our project name as well as the project’s updated capacity amongst just some of the highlights. A personal highlight has been seeing the team take shape, and across our partners, ensuring the talent and expertise is in place and ready for what’s to come in 2023 and beyond. The project is looking forward to sharing our progress with our Stakeholders and Contractors in the year ahead.”
Focus on 2023
Work is continuing with National Grid ESO to feed into the Holistic Network Design (HND) Follow-up Exercise and towards more clarity on grid connection locations.
Building on 2022 with further stakeholder engagement as the project submits Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) scoping for the wind farm.
The project will have its first exhibition stand at the Scottish Renewables Offshore Conference at the end of January.
The Ossian website is due to launch in Q1 facilitating additional engagement and keeping all Stakeholders up to date.
Work continues at the project site with Q1 seeing the completion of two years of site specific and one year of regional bird surveys and the commencement of geotechnical surveys planned for later in 2023.