Consent Variation Submitted

In August 2021, ScottishPower Renewables submitted a third Non-Material Change application for the East Anglia THREE offshore wind farm. This application sought to remove the previously established maximum generating capacity limit of 1,400 MW and to further optimise the turbine layout by decreasing the number of wind turbines while increasing their height and rotor radius. The submission built on earlier stages of the consenting history, which included the original consent granted in August 2017 and subsequent Non-Material Changes approved by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) in June 2019 and April 2021. Those earlier changes had already increased the project’s overall capacity and adjusted the configuration of offshore substations and turbines. The August 2021 application represented a continued refinement of the consented design envelope for East Anglia THREE, enabling the project to shift towards a configuration with fewer but larger turbines within the existing development area. The application was made to BEIS as the responsible consenting authority and was later approved in September 2022, confirming that the proposed modifications were considered non-material within the framework of the existing consent. This sequence of incremental variations helped align the consented project parameters with evolving turbine technology and project design ahead of the start of onshore construction works, which began in July 2022.