Forewind is a consortium of four leading international energy companies – RWE, SSE, Statkraft and Statoil – formed to secure all the necessary consents required for offshore wind development at Dogger Bank. The Crown Estate included an area from Dogger Bank as part of its third licence round for offshore wind. The Dogger Bank Zone, located between 125 and 290 kilometres off the east coast of Yorkshire, extended over almost 8660 square kilometres. Dogger Bank was the largest of the Round 3 zones but with water depths ranging from 18 to 63 metres, also one of the shallowest, with the potential for around 4GW of development capacity in less than 30m water depths. The size of the Dogger Bank Zone meant it had to be consented in stages. To identify the sites for the wind farms, Forewind spent four years accumulating a huge amount of data via detailed geophysical (seabed and sub-seabed) surveys; geotechnical testing; and meteorological, wind and oceanographic data collection. Through this work, combined with desk based research and stakeholder consultation, Forewind identified four project areas of around 550 square kilometres each to take through to development consent. Two separate applications (each for two 1.2GW wind farms) were submitted and Forewind received its first planning consent, for Dogger Bank Creyke Beck, in February 2015. It received its second planning consent, for Dogger Bank Teesside A&B, in August 2015. The four consented projects are: Dogger Bank Creyke Beck A, Dogger Bank Creyke Beck B, Dogger Bank Teesside A and Dogger Bank Teesside B. They are each subject to a single lease agreement and the remainder of the Zone itself has been returned to The Crown Estate for its future use. Operators will be assigned to each project from within the Forewind owner companies to progress the wind farms to the next stage of pre-construction. If fully realised, these projects will together be the largest offshore wind development in the world.
