The Crown Estate has launched its round 3 leasing programme for the delivery of up to 25 gigawatts (GW) of new offshore windfarm sites by 2020.

The announcement was made at the British Wind Energy Association (BWEA) conference in central London.

The programme for round 3 is expected to accelerate delivery of offshore windfarms projects, combining the development experience of the offshore wind industry with the benefits of The Crown Estate's knowledge and management experience of the UK's coasts and seas.

The Crown Estate will in due course be inviting potential partners to bid for development zones; identified through both spatial planning by The Crown Estate and the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) being undertaken by BERR. Successful bidders will have exclusive rights to develop windfarms in specified zones.

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The Crown Estate is planning to co-invest up to 50% of the cost of obtaining planning consents for windfarm sites, including the funding of enabling works intended to speed up windfarm delivery. This may include action to address generic, zone-wide environmental concerns, consenting bottlenecks, supply chain constraints and options for connecting new windfarms to the national grid.

The selected partners will remain wholly responsible for construction and operation of windfarm sites. The Crown Estate is not intending to take any role in the eventual ownership or operation of offshore windfarms resulting from this programme other than to provide leases of the seabed to operators.

Malcolm Wicks, Minister of State for Energy, said: "The expansion of wind energy is already a real success story for the UK. We will shortly become the leading country in the world in terms of the number of windfarms operating offshore. The potential for round 3 will add to that success.

"Last year we announced the commencement of a SEA for offshore wind development. The scoping consultation phase is complete and a summary of the responses has been published today. We are on course with this work and expect to be able to make decisions early in 2009 regarding the conclusions of our assessment for up to 25 GW of offshore wind.

"Government is aware of the costs and supply challenges facing the industry. It's hoped The Crown Estate's investment and leasing programme for round 3 will provide developers with confidence to make investments much earlier on, like signing grid connection agreements or ordering turbines."

(CD/JM)