ERM to lead environmental impact assessment for Salamander floating offshore wind project

As part of the work, engineering consultants NIRAS has been contracted by Salamander to lead the habitats regulations appraisal (HRA) and Brown & May Marine Ltd will provide commercial fisheries support.

The Salamander offshore wind project, located 35 km off Peterhead, will be a contributor in delivering the UK government’s target of 5 GW of operational floating offshore wind by 2030.

The project is designed to provide the Scottish supply chain with an early capacity development opportunity, enabling it to play a much greater role in subsequent large scale floating offshore wind buildout.

Huw Bell, Salamander project director, said: “This is another milestone in the development of the project. We are working with very experienced companies that are supporting us with our ambitions in creating a project that play a significant role in how the industry delivers floating wind going forward.”

Huw Powell, Partner at ERM, said: “ERM is proud to be supporting this exciting project which will transform Scotland’s capability at a key time for floating offshore wind. We’re also delighted that Salamander recognised our consenting expertise, and to be working in partnership with such a highly experienced client team.”

Tim Norman, UK Country Director at NIRAS, added: “We are pleased to be supporting the project, utilising our in-house expertise across all key HRA topics and look forward to delivering as part of such a talented team.”

Salamander will deploy innovative and cutting-edge floating offshore wind technologies to support the cost reduction and learning journey needed for the commercial deployment of floating offshore wind.

Salamander recently awarded the pre-FEED foundation design to Ocergy for its OCG-Wind foundation technology.

Salamander is intended to be progressed through the innovation track of Crown Estate Scotland’s Innovation and Targeted Oil and Gas (INTOG) leasing round. The INTOG round will grant seabed leases through an auction process, which will be split into two pots – one for smaller scale innovation projects of less than 100 MW and one for larger projects linked to oil and gas infrastructure.

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