First Power

The North Falls Offshore Wind Farm’s programme for seabird compensation explicitly links the project’s first power milestone to a point four years after development consent is granted. In both the original (July 2024) and revised (March 2025) versions of the Kittiwake Compensation Document submitted with the Development Consent Order (DCO) application, a schedule table sets out activities by “Year from consent.” It shows “Year 0” as the anticipated North Falls consent being granted, followed by approval and submission of the Kittiwake Compensation Implementation and Monitoring Plan (CIMP). “Year 1,” “Year 2,” and “Year 3” are reserved for implementing and continuing compensation, monitoring, and adaptive management, all explicitly described as occurring before operation of North Falls. In “Year 4,” the table lists both the start of offshore construction at the wind farm site and, separately, the “Earliest first power at North Falls.” [1][2] Because this schedule is structured relative to consent (Year 0) and extends through calendar years 2022–2030 in the table header, the earliest first power is effectively programmed for about four years after consent, aligning with around 2030 on the indicative timeline. The documents present this as a planned, not yet achieved, milestone, tied to delivery of compensatory measures for kittiwake under the Habitats Regulations Assessment derogation framework. It signals the developer’s assumption that at least three full years of compensation will be in place prior to the wind farm exporting electricity, with first power occurring in the fourth year post-consent.