Recognising that early and strategic investment in Scotland’s supply chain is essential to realising the opportunities presented by offshore wind development, Crown Estate Scotland has played a key role in establishing the Strategic Investment Model (SIM) process through SOWEC.

As part of our leasing rounds, bidders were required to produce statements outlining their intended levels of spend at a Scottish, UK and international level. Crown Estate Scotland works with other agencies and stakeholders to analyse and support projects in pursuit of these commitments. 

Read more in the Supply chain commitments section of this page.

Crown Estate Scotland worked with key industry bodies at a UK level on production of a new Growth Plan for the sector, to maximise the impact of strategic supply chain investments.

Crown Estate Scotland commissioned an authoritative review of the potential for Scotland’s ports in supporting offshore wind. This review has informed much subsequent work in support of our key energy ports.

Crown Estate Scotland has provided funding to The Carbon Trust to deliver ORJIP over several years, improving the evidence base for the industry in key topic areas around seabirds, noise and cable impacts.

Crown Estate Scotland provides funding each year to the Scottish Government’s Marine Directorate for projects supporting our strategic objectives, including research projects identified through the ScotMER programme. 

This has included PrePARED, an offshore renewables science project.

Crown Estate Scotland is a funding member of the Natural Environment Research Council's (NERC) ECOWIND programme, which has funded 4 major multi-year research projects into ecosystem level impacts of fixed offshore wind.

The 'Collaboration for Environmental Mitigation & Nature Inclusive Design' project was initiated by the SOWEC Barriers to Deployment group and is funded by Crown Estate Scotland. 

It aimed to review best practice in environmental mitigation from existing wind farms and made recommendations on incorporating ‘nature inclusive design’ principles into wind farms now in development.

Crown Estate Scotland has agreed a partnership with The Crown Estate to expand the Marine Data Exchange (MDE) to collect and share offshore data from across UK projects.

We are now engaging with developers who have been commissioning surveys around Scotland, supporting them to upload relevant data and reports to the site and to agree appropriate times for its publication. 

We aim to make that data freely available to the public, via the MDE, at the earliest opportunity. The release of some archived data is also underway.

Crown Estate Scotland joined with partners to fund a new, interactive reference website for anyone seeking information about floating wind technology, including new entrants to the sector, regulators and stakeholders.

Crown Estate Scotland is a member of the Floating Wind Task Force and has funded two key reports with the aim of maximising the floating wind potential found in Scotland’s deeper waters.

• Building UK Port infrastructure to unlock the floating wind opportunity
• Floating Wind: Anchoring the next generation offshore

Crown Estate Scotland has partnered with the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult on a number of key projects aimed at unlocking the commercial scale development of floating wind in Scotland. These have included studies on:

• The moorings and anchoring requirements for floating wind (spring 2023)
• Tension leg platform foundation technology and the challenges and opportunities it presents for projects (autumn 2023)
• Potential floating wind farm interactions with commercial fishing and how the requirements of both industries can be considered (2024)

Wet or temporary storage of floating turbines or their foundations will have a key role in the assembly supply chain for Scotland’s floating wind farms. 

Together with industry, we funded phase one of a Joint Industry Project assessing the most suitable locations for wet storage in Scotland.

Crown Estate Scotland commissioned a study into the potential strategic infrastructure that will be needed to realise a major green hydrogen industry in Scotland, and the different commercial models that could secure this investment.