In 2022, Magnora Offshore Wind was successful in its bid to develop a floating offshore wind farm in the N3 area, about 35 kilometres northwest of Scotland’s Western Isles.
The planned Talisk Offshore Wind Farm will boast 33 15-megawatt turbines with concrete or steel floaters, with a total estimated capacity of 495 megawatts. The site offers an excellent annual wind resource of 11.2 meters per second at hub height, with a capacity factor of about 56%.
Development activities are already well underway, including aerial and geophysical surveys. The project also has strong local support and few environmental impact risks.
Finer details
Scotland offers ideal conditions for floating offshore wind. This was recently illustrated by the seventh Contracts for Difference (CfD) auction round, which awarded contracts to projects that can secure an offtake price of £216.49 per megawatt-hour for the first 20 years of operation.
The site's location northwest of Lewis, in the North Atlantic, also makes it ideal for offshore wind development. The N3 area consistently offers high wind speeds of around 11.2 meters per second, with a capacity factor of 56%, and water depths of between 106 and 125 meters.
Approximately £50 million in development expenditure will be provided up until the final investment decision is made, with £2 to 3 billion investment in capital expenditure required.
The preliminary design work for the project has been completed, and engagement with turbine suppliers is ongoing.
Early engineering studies and feasibility/concept studies have been carried out or are being planned for elements such as the foundations, mooring/anchoring system, inter-array cables, transport, and installation.
The project has also completed two years of aerial bird and sea mammal surveys. Geophysical surveys are well underway, with 70% of the array site already covered.
The project aims to achieve consent in 2028. The final investment decision will be taken shortly after this, if the project has received a Contracts for Difference (CfD) award.
Magnora Offshore Wind is a Norwegian company owned by Magnora ASA and TechnipFMC.
Magnora is a developer of renewable energy projects. TechnipFMC is a global service and technology provider in the oil and gas sector, as well as renewables.
The project will create opportunities for local manufacturers in the fabrication and assembly of components.
The site's remote location in the North Atlantic, off the coast of Lewis, means there are few environmental constraints to affect the farm.
Grid access will be easily available through the 1.8G gigawatt high-voltage direct current (HVDC) link at Arnish. This should be in place by 2030, which means the project could be complete ahead of schedule – making it one of the first floating offshore wind project of commercial scale.
The project presents numerous opportunities for the local supply chain, including component fabrication and assembly and labour for operations and maintenance (O&M). UK-operated vessels will also be required during the installation phase.
Partners
Magnora has extensive experience in the renewable energy sector as a developer of offshore wind, onshore wind, and solar projects.
Its key strengths include managing supply chain relationships, grid connection, business development, route to market, and the consenting process.
TechnipFMC has extensive experience in executing integrated large offshore, floating, and subsea projects, and particularly in delivering integrated engineering, procurement, construction, and installation (EPCI) projects.
The company has a solid track record of developing unique technologies from prototypes into well-established, scalable solutions.
It also offers its own fleet of vessels that can be used for installing turbines, and manufacturing capacity for key components.
DNV is contributing its expertise in wind assessment, EIA, and other technical aspects.
The project will also involve interactions with its local harbour, Stornoway Port, and also the yard at Kishorn Port.
How it works
1 Sign up
Share a few details to help us get you to the right team.
2 Get a call back
Our dedicated team will call within three working days, but usually sooner.
3 Get free support
Benefit from free ongoing support for you and your team.
We’d like to use cookies to enable functionality, to understand how you use our site, to support our marketing activities, and to help us improve the site.
Our operations are managed by Scottish Enterprise.
Cookies help Scottish Enterprise (“SE”, “us” or “we”) to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allow us to improve our website. We assume that you are happy to receive all the cookies in the categories that you elect to allow, or which are strictly necessary for the operation of our website. You can change your cookie settings at any time.
Strictly necessary cookies
These are cookies that are required for the operation of our website. They include, for example, cookies that enable you to log into secure areas of our website.
Cookie name
Purpose
Expiry
SESDI_Necessary_AllowedCookies
This cookie is used to record your preferences in regard to accepting marketing, performance or functionality cookies across the site.
1 year
se-session
This cookie is used to provide secure access to SE website features such as address lookup and form validation/submissions.
When browser is closed
Performance and analytics cookies
They allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around our website when they are using it. This helps us to improve the way our website works, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily.
Third party service
Purpose
Where to find out more
Google Analytics
Google Analytics helps us analyse the behaviour of users on our site, such as which pages they view, how long they spend on each page, and which elements they interact with.
Hotjar helps us analyse the behaviour of users on our site by collating data into heatmaps, scrollmaps and other visual representations. It also allows us to add short surveys to the site.
These cookies record your visit to our website, the pages you have visited and the links you have followed. We will use this information to make our website and the advertising displayed on it more relevant to your interests. We may also share this information with third parties for this purpose.
Third party service
Purpose
Where to find out more
Google Ads
By consenting to advertising we will share personal data with Google Ads to perform ad measurement services on our behalf, and that we obtain customer consent for such sharing and use where legally required. Google Ads help us to show pay per click ads in Google search results. These cookies help us track who comes to our site through these ads, so we know how successful they are. By granting permission for marketing cookies, you are confirming that you are happy to be tracked from our sites and receive targeted marketing based on your Google account details.
The LinkedIn Insight Tag helps us analyse the behaviour of visitors to our site who have come through LinkedIn adverts, and also helps us target advertising on LinkedIn.
Our website includes embedded videos from YouTube using YouTube’s Privacy-Enhanced Mode. This means YouTube will not store information or set cookies unless you play the video. When you press play, YouTube may set cookies on your device and collect information about your activity, which may be linked to your Google account if you are signed in. These cookies are managed by YouTube and are subject to Google’s Privacy Policy.
SE sometimes embeds photos and video content from websites such as YouTube and Flickr. As a result, when you visit a page with content embedded from, for example, YouTube or Flickr, you may be presented with cookies from these websites. SE does not control the dissemination of these cookies. You should check the relevant third party website for more information about these.
SE will not use cookies to collect personally identifiable information about you. However, if you wish to restrict or block the cookies which are set by SE websites, or any third party websites, you can do this through your browser settings. The Help function within your browser should tell you how.
Alternatively, you may wish to visit the About Cookies website, which contains comprehensive information about cookies and how to restrict or delete cookies on a wide variety of browsers.
Please be aware that restricting cookies may impact on the functionality of the SDI website.
SE and our other websites use a number of suppliers who set cookies on our behalf in order to deliver the services that they are providing. We are constantly reviewing our use of cookies and, as such, this cookies policy will be regularly renewed to include up to date information about the cookies used by our suppliers. We would highly recommend that you check this page on a regular basis.
