Inch Cape, off Scotland’s Angus Coast, is planned to deliver around 905 megawatts of wind power – roughly enough to power around 680,000 homes.

Inch Cape was originally awarded in 2009 to a consortium of npower and SeaEnergy’s renewables arm SeaEnergy Renewables Limited (SERL).

However, npower’s pulled out of the scheme in 2010 citing the scale of the project and its other renewable generation commitments.

In the deal announced today (June 6) The Crown Estate, the business that manages assets owned by the Queen, will plug the funding gap left by npower’s decision not to go ahead with the scheme.

The Crown Estate has today (June 6) announced the signing of an agreement for the lease with SeaEnergy Renewables Inch Cape Limited (SERICL) for the development of a wind farm at the Inch Cape site.

The Crown Estate’s Scottish commissioner, Gareth Baird, said: “This investment demonstrates the critical role played by The Crown Estate in helping drive the Scottish offshore wind industry, in line with one of the Scottish Government’s key objectives.

“The Crown Estate’s structure and diverse UK portfolio makes this investment possible and has enabled a Scottish based developer to attract investment into the Scottish economy from two international developers.”

SERL chief executive, Joel Staadecker, said: “Inch Cape is a tremendously well situated site with great wind resource potential, and thanks to The Crown Estate we have been able to continue to progress the project without any delay.”

SeaEnergy also today sold its entire interest in SERL to South American based Repsol Nuevas Energias subject to shareholder approval for just under £40million.

SeaEnergy holds 80.13% interest in SERL which it has agreed to sell in return for £30.7million along with its £8.1million investment in SERL.

Luke Walsh

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