Offshore Transmission Network Review: proposals for an enduring regime and multi-purpose interconnectors

The current offshore transmission regime takes a developer-led approach to designing and delivering offshore transmission, which has resulted in individual connections for each windfarm, and dates from when offshore wind was a nascent sector.

With rapidly increasing scale of deployment the cumulative impact of individual transmission links on the environment and local communities is no longer fit for purpose and could pose a major barrier to future deployment.

We are consulting on proposals to develop a new enduring regime that takes a more strategic approach to windfarm development and considers the offshore transmission system holistically with the onshore network to deliver a more coordinated approach and reduce the cumulative impacts of transmission. The consultation sets out:

• a range of possible approaches for an enduring regime, ranging from incremental change to a completely new regime
• a provisional recommendation that a more strategic approach is required in any future regime to achieve the Review’s objectives
• possible models for an enduring regime and their high-level assessment against agreed criteria

We are not seeking to lock in a specific model at the moment, but will use your feedback to inform further detailed assessment of individual options. We will then consult again on the detail later in 2021.

The consultation is open to anyone to respond, but will be of particular interest to:

• offshore and floating wind developers
• oil and gas, and hydrogen sectors
• interconnector developers
• offshore wind technology providers
• offshore transmission operators (OFTOs), transmission operators (TOs), system operator (SO)
• environmental and community groups
• individual stakeholders from regions particularly affected by offshore wind deployment such as East Anglia, devolved administrations

Read the BEIS consultation privacy notice.

Please don’t send responses by post to the department at the moment as we may not be able to access them.