The offshore wind industry is welcoming the recent announcement by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) of a Marine Recovery Fund, paid for by offshore wind developers, to enable more widespread measures to be taken to protect biodiversity in UK waters. The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero has published interim guidance on how the fund will operate.
The industry already takes steps to compensate for any impacts on the marine environment as new projects are built, but these will now be extended further.
The fund, to be delivered later this year, will enable measures to be delivered more strategically, for example across multiple projects being developed by different companies in the same area of seabed, which will not only deliver better environmental outcomes but also enable the industry to focus on achieving the Government’s offshore wind targets.
RenewableUK’s Environment and Consenting Co-Programme Manager Kat Route-Stephens said:
“Today’s announcement and guidance publication will help to unlock billions of pounds of investment in new offshore wind farms, and pave the way for many more to come, by setting in place a new Marine Recovery Fund. Instead of each wind farm setting out its own measures to protect marine wildlife, they will now contribute into a dedicated collective fund. This system provides greater certainty for wind farm developers, as well as strategic and co-ordinated action to support the natural environment. A win-win for nature, the economy, billpayers and the planet. And we can go further, as we are keen to continue working with the Government on extending the fund to protect seabirds as well as the seabed”
The Offshore Wind Industry Council’s Workstream Sponsor for Environment & Consents Benj Sykes, Ørsted UK Country Manager, said:
“Today’s announcement is a welcome and much-anticipated step forward in the reform of our marine planning system to unlock government’s ambitious offshore wind growth targets whilst ensuring we continue to protect and restore our precious marine environment. The Marine Recovery Fund is a vital tool in unlocking the pipeline of projects in development and we now need to build on the excellent collaboration between Defra, the Offshore Wind Industry Council and others to implement the fund as quickly as possible, and urgently expand the delivery of ornithological measures to protect seabirds, to avoid further delays to the progress of these projects, which are central to achieving the Government’s Clean Power 2030 Action Plan”.
