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Crown Estate publishes plans for Celtic Sea floating offshore wind leasing Round 513 December 2023

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On Thursday 7 December 2023, The Crown Estate (“TCE”) published their Information Memorandum (the “Memorandum”) ahead of the Celtic Sea floating offshore wind leasing Round 5. The publication signifies the formal commencement of the leasing round. The Memorandum contains information ranging from details of the investment opportunities to the auction process and key legal agreements.

We considered the amendments TCE made to its initial Round 5 proposal in our previous article. The Memorandum provides further information on the process. TCE shows greater focus on de-risking the Round 5 developments for bidders. For example, the spatial design agreed with the UK Government minimises the risk of conflicting interests and there will be increased transparency in the bidding process. Bidders can participate in Round 5 as a sole bidder or as a consortium.

"On Thursday 7 December 2023, The Crown Estate published their Information Memorandum ahead of the Celtic Sea floating offshore wind leasing Round 5. The publication signifies the formal commencement of the leasing round."

The Memorandum sets out a clear timeline intended for the bidding process which will be managed through TCE’s tender portal:

Bidders Day – TCE are holding a Round 5 Bidders Day in Swansea on 31 January 2024. This will give prospective bidders the opportunity to hear all the details of the Round 5 tender process and ask questions to TCE’s senior representatives. Further registration details are on TCE’s website. The registration deadline is 17:00 (GMT) on 22 December 2023.
Pre-Qualification Questionnaire (“PQQ”) – this is the key stage for TCE’s analysis of prospective bidders. TCE will evaluate a range of information on the bidders, including their past experience and financial performance. The process is expected to begin in February 2024, with bidders to be notified of results as early as July 2024.
Invitation to Tender (“ITT”) Stage 1 – only those successful bidders from the PQQ stage will advance to Stage 1 ITT. This is a further opportunity for TCE to evaluate the prospective bidders on key legal, technical and financial criteria to ensure that bidders are able to meet the minimum expected future financial commitments required for a Round 5 development. At this stage, TCE will provide bidders with the draft legal agreements and will require bidders to confirm that they unconditionally accept their terms. ITT Stage 1 is intended to commence in August 2024 and conclude in Quarter 1 of 2025. Only those bidders that are successful at ITT Stage 1 will be invited to ITT Stage 2.
ITT Stage 2 (Auction) – this is the formal auction, with bidders invited to submit a single option fee bid for any one of the Project Development Areas (“PDA”) during each auction round. Bidders will be required to sign a Preferred Bidder Letter ahead of the auction. All three PDAs will be auctioned at the same time, and further auction rules will be announced at ITT Stage 1. ITT Stage 2 will take place between Quarter 1 and Quarter 2 of 2025.

Following ITT Stage 2, the successful bidders will be announced. This will trigger the final stage of entry into Agreements for Lease which is expected to take place in Autumn 2025.

London Trainee Abi Barrett also contributed to this article.

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