Ossian is a development stage offshore wind project approximately 84km off the east coast of Scotland.

At 858km² of seabed, Ossian is one of the largest lease areas to be offered by Crown Estate Scotland to any bidder in the ScotWind leasing round.

The lease area has average water depths of 72m, making the site suitable for the deployment of floating offshore wind turbines to deliver up to 3.6GW of new installed capacity – enough to be capable of powering up to 6 million homes annually and offsetting up to 7.5 million tonnes of carbon emissions each year. 

Ossian will export to the UK grid via connections to Lincolnshire which are being delivered as part of National Grid ESO’s Holistic Network Design.

About Ossian

Ossian (pronounced ‘os-si-un’) from The Poems of Ossian is the name for our proposed offshore wind farm located in waters off the east coast of Scotland. 

Ossian is fitting, given the combination of scale, power, tradition, and global reach it represents. Ossian will be a critical project and will provide a significant proportion of the renewable energy capacity we need to meet government ambition and help us reach net zero.

As one of the largest wind farm developments in Scottish waters, Ossian represents a new tradition in power generation – and, like the poems, links far-off lands through the partnership of companies from around the world, bringing together local knowledge and global expertise.

Development Progress

Significant works have already been completed to ensure that the project can be delivered at speed to respond to the climate emergency.  
Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Scoping Report for the Ossian Array submitted to, and opinion received from Marine Directorate setting out the approach to defining the environmental baseline and undertaking the EIA. 

• First public consultation for the offshore wind farm Array launched in Q1 2024.  
• Ocean Infinity geotechnical survey concludes in November 2023. 
• Metocean 12-month data gathering campaign completed in July 2023. 
• Fugro geotechnical survey completed in August 2023. 
• 24 months of site specific bird and marine mammal digital aerial surveys completed in Q1 2023. 
• Geophysical survey of the Ossian Wind Farm Array completed in Autumn 2022.  
• Benthic grab sampling and seabed imagery, and epibenthic trawls across the site boundary completed in Autumn 2022.  
• Floating LiDAR and Metocean buoys deployed in August 2022 to collect 24 and 12 months of data respectively.  
• Winter vessel traffic survey carried out in Q4 2022. 

The partnership

SSE Renewables Limited (SSER), Marubeni Corporation (Marubeni), and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) (the Project Partners) are combining their unparalleled local experience and extensive global expertise in the development of offshore wind farms to deliver significant and enduring social, economic, and decarbonisation benefits to the UK.

SSE Renewables 

SSER is a leading developer, owner and operator of renewable energy projects and assets across the UK and Ireland with a portfolio of around 4GW of operational offshore wind, onshore wind and hydro sites. SSER has a secured 13GW pipeline in development, this includes; new offshore wind, onshore wind and hydro projects, including the largest offshore wind pipeline in the UK and Ireland at over 6GW.

Its operational offshore wind portfolio consists of 487MW across two offshore joint venture sites (Beatrice and Greater Gabbard), both of which it operates on behalf of its joint venture partners.

SSER is currently constructing the world’s largest offshore wind energy project, the 3.6GW Dogger Bank Wind Farm in the North Sea, as well as Scotland’s largest and the world's deepest fixed bottom offshore site, the 1.1GW Seagreen Offshore Wind Farm in the Firth of Forth. SSER is also at the planning stage of the Berwick Bank Wind Farm, which will be one of the world’s largest wind farm developments once built, generating up to 4.1GW of power, with the planning application submitted to the Scottish Government in December 2022.

SSE Renewables is leading the transition to a net zero future through the world-class development, construction and operation of renewable power assets. Part of UK-listed SSE plc, it will treble renewable energy capacity to over 13GW by 2031, increasing output fivefold to over 50TWh annually.

Marubeni

Marubeni Corporation is a Japanese conglomerate with extensive interests in power generation and renewable energy. The company has built considerable offshore wind experience since its first investment into offshore wind in 2011 as the first Japanese IPP to enter the UK offshore wind market. 

Marubeni brings a wealth of sector experience of delivering floating offshore wind to the consortium, including leading floating offshore wind demonstration projects in Japan with five different floating foundations. The Fukushima Floating Offshore Wind Farm was operational between 2013 and 2020, consisting of three floating turbines, with total capacity of 14MW, and one floating substation installed 20km off the coast of Naraha-town (Fukushima prefecture). The Kitakyushu Floating Offshore Wind Farm began operating in 2019, consisting of one floating turbine installed 15km off the coast of Kitayushu-city (Fukuoka prefecture). 

Marubeni managed the project consortiums for these projects, as well as taking a lead role in consenting and permitting, economics analysis, operation and maintenance, and coordination with fisheries gaining significant experience across the full project lifecycle of floating wind, including the decommissioning process. 

Marubeni has also been instrumental in the delivery of Japan’s first large-scale bottom fixed offshore wind farms at Akita Port and Noshiro Port in Akita Prefecture as part of the Akita Offshore Wind Corporation. As part of this project, Marubeni was responsible for development, construction, operation and maintenance, and financing of the project, with the Akita Port and Noshiro Port wind farms reaching commercial operation in December 2022 and January 2023 respectively.

Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP)

Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) is a fund management company specialised in offering tailor-made investments in energy infrastructure assets globally within the renewables and greenfield sectors.

Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) is a trusted partner in projects across a wide range of technologies including offshore wind, onshore wind, solar PV, biomass, energy-from-waste, transmission and distribution, reserve capacity and storage, and other energy assets, such as Power-to-X. They are known for execution certainty, with projects completed on budget and to specification. 

In the north of Scotland, Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners is developing both a floating demonstration  project up to 10MW and a floating wind farm with a capacity of up to 100MW off the coast of Dounreay in the Pentland Firth. Copenhagen Offshore Partners (COP) is managing the development, design, EPC and O&M of these projects on an exclusive basis for CIP and provides resources and know-how to the ScotWind Project Partners. 

CIP manages ten funds and has approximately EUR 18 billion under management. CIP was founded in 2012 by senior executives from the energy industry in cooperation with PensionDanmark. Today CIP’s funds have approximately 100 international institutional investors from the Nordics, Continental Europe, the UK, Israel, Asia, Australia, and North America and multi-lateral organisations e.g., European Investment Bank (EIB).

KeyFacts Energy: SSE UK country profile   l   KeyFacts Energy Industry Directory: Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners