Ossian

By 26 June 2025, specialist contractors had completed a month‑long benthic seabed survey along a 420 km corridor from the Ossian array, 84 km off Aberdeenshire, to landfall in Lincolnshire, sampling 122 sites to identify viable offshore export cable routes and support environmental impact assessment work.

On 6 May 2025, Ossian reported completion of a campaign lasting more than two years to collect wind data using two floating LiDAR buoys deployed since August 2022 across the 858 km² site 84 km off the east coast of Scotland, yielding wind speed and direction measurements at ten heights up to 300 m to refine energy yield predictions.

On 3 April 2025, the Planning Inspectorate, on behalf of the Secretary of State, published its EIA Scoping Opinion for the Ossian Transmission Infrastructure Development Consent Order, confirming the scope of environmental information required for the offshore export cables in English waters, landfall works, onshore HVDC export cables and onshore converter stations before the application is submitted.

In February 2025, Ossian Offshore Wind Farm Ltd submitted the Ossian Transmission Infrastructure EIA Scoping Report, initiating formal environmental scoping for the offshore export cables, landfall, and onshore HVDC/HVAC transmission infrastructure, to define the topics and parameters to be assessed before development consent and marine licence applications are made.

A 13‑month uncrewed geophysical survey of the Ossian offshore export cable route, covering the corridor between the array and the Lincolnshire coast, finished in January 2025 after operating through 11 named storms and providing detailed seabed characterisation to underpin cable routing and design.

Geophysical surveys of the offshore export cable corridors for the Ossian project were completed, providing seabed and route data needed to design and consent the cable transmission system that will connect the Ossian floating wind array to the onshore grid.

National Grid ESO published its ‘Beyond 2030’ report confirming that Ossian will connect to the transmission network in Lincolnshire, giving greater certainty over the onshore connection area that the Ossian Transmission Infrastructure will need to reach.

A year‑long metocean data‑gathering campaign at the Ossian site, collecting extensive information on wave heights, currents, tides and sediment movements to support construction and deployment planning, was concluded earlier in 2024.

On 2 October 2024, Ossian Offshore Wind Farm Ltd held a public information day at Aby Village Hall near Alford, Lincolnshire, marking the start of community engagement on the Ossian project, including plans to install subsea export cables from the Scottish wind farm to a Lincolnshire landfall and transmit power via underground cables to new converter stations and National Grid connection points.

The Ossian consortium of SSE Renewables, Marubeni Corporation and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners submitted the consent application for the Ossian offshore array to the Scottish Government, seeking Section 36 consent for the generating station and marine licences for the floating wind turbines and offshore transmission platforms within the 858 km² array area 84 km off the Aberdeenshire coast.

Ossian Offshore Wind Farm Limited completed and submitted the Ossian Array Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Report, covering the floating turbines, offshore substation platforms, and inter-array and interconnector cables, to the Scottish Government’s Marine Directorate as part of the consent application for the offshore array.

Ossian Offshore Wind Farm has secured grid connection offers from National Grid Electricity System Operator (NGESO) for up to 3.6 GW of Transmission Entry Capacity on the National Electricity Transmission System, maximising the generation that can be exported from the project’s resource-rich site.

On 27 June 2024, Ossian Offshore Wind Farm Limited issued its Planning & Need Statement for the array, demonstrating that the project could deliver up to 3.6 GW of offshore wind capacity, supply electricity for up to six million homes and make a substantial contribution to UK decarbonisation and energy security objectives in the 2030s.

The Ossian project partners scheduled their first public consultation on the Ossian wind farm array, a four‑week virtual consultation running from 22 January to 19 February with multiple live Q&A sessions to update stakeholders on array development and gather feedback ahead of planning application submission.

National Grid ESO completed its Holistic Network Design (HND) process for Ossian’s grid connection(s), providing an outcome on how the project will connect into the GB transmission system and informing early planning of the Ossian Transmission Infrastructure required to evacuate power from the offshore array.

In November 2023, Ossian became the first ScotWind floating offshore wind project to complete essential geotechnical surveys of the array area, following earlier contract awards to Fugro and Ocean Infinity to carry out downhole sampling, cone penetration testing, vibro‑coring and related investigations to characterise seabed conditions for turbine and mooring design.

Ossian Offshore Wind Farm Limited submitted an EIA Scoping Report for the Ossian floating offshore wind farm array to Marine Scotland, which then circulated the report and commenced the formal scoping consultation process to agree key focus areas for the forthcoming Environmental Impact Assessment.

HiDef Aerial Surveying completed its digital aerial survey campaign over the Ossian array area in February 2023, after 330 hours of flight time covering approximately 4,050 km² to characterise birds and marine mammals for the project’s environmental assessments.

By 2022, the Ossian partners had completed a full geophysical survey of the wind farm site, gathering high‑quality seabed data during a 109‑day offshore campaign to ground‑truth earlier information and support design development and capacity assessment.

A comprehensive benthic survey of the Ossian project area was completed in 2022 alongside the geophysical work, collecting seabed samples and ecological data that were used to refine the project’s potential capacity and inform environmental impact assessment.

On 4 November 2022, following analysis of newly acquired geophysical and benthic survey data, the Ossian team announced that the project’s potential capacity had increased from 2.6 GW to up to 3.6 GW, significantly enhancing its prospective contribution to renewable generation and positioning it among the world’s largest floating wind farms.

In August 2022, two EOLOS FLS 200 floating LiDAR buoys were deployed at the Ossian site to start a more than two‑year wind measurement campaign, recording wind speed and direction at ten heights up to 300 m above the North Sea surface.

Concurrently with the floating LiDAR deployment in August 2022, Partrac installed metocean instruments, including three wave buoys and three subsea moorings, at the Ossian site to begin collecting data on waves, currents, tidal levels, turbidity, conductivity and temperature over an extended period.

In January 2022, Crown Estate Scotland awarded Ossian Offshore Wind Farm Limited, a joint venture of SSE Renewables, Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and Marubeni, an Option to Lease agreement to develop the Ossian offshore wind farm within the E1 East Plan Option Area as part of the ScotWind Leasing Round, covering about 858 km² of seabed off the east coast of Scotland.

Digital aerial baseline surveys over the Ossian array area began in March 2021, with HiDef Aerial Surveying collecting data on birds and marine mammals across the offshore site to inform the Environmental Impact Assessment.

The Scottish Government published the Sectoral Marine Plan (SMP) for Offshore Wind Energy in October 2020, identifying final Plan Option Areas, including the E1 area in the East/North East region that later formed the ScotWind lease zone where the Ossian floating wind farm is being developed.

Ossian Offshore Wind Farm Ltd (Ossian OWFL), the applicant for the Ossian Transmission Infrastructure, is structured as a joint venture led by SSE Renewables with partners Marubeni Corporation and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners. This JV entity is responsible for developing the Ossian offshore wind farm and the associated transmission infrastructure that will connect the Ossian Array to the National Grid in Lincolnshire.

In the February 2025 EIA Scoping Report, Ossian Offshore Wind Farm Ltd explains that the Ossian Transmission Infrastructure—comprising offshore export cables, landfall works, onshore export cables and onshore converter stations—will be designed, manufactured and installed for a minimum operational lifetime of 35 years, after which it is anticipated that the transmission assets will be decommissioned. The consent being sought therefore explicitly covers not only installation, operation and maintenance but also the eventual decommissioning of the Ossian Transmission Infrastructure at the end of its operational life.