Fid Financial Close

The Shetland News article on ESB’s proposed 500MW Stoura floating offshore wind farm, located around 30 miles east of Shetland, confirms that a Final Investment Decision (FID) has not yet been taken. Project director Dr Cian Desmond states that an investment decision is expected to be made by 2032, underlining that there is currently “huge financial uncertainty with the project” and that no one yet knows “what the financial arrangement is going to be.” This places the project firmly in an early development phase where key commercial structures, financing partners and overall cost frameworks are still to be defined. The article also outlines the broader development timetable around this anticipated FID. ESB is working towards submitting its overall consent application in 2028/29 and aims to publish its onshore Environmental Impact Assessment scoping report by March of the following year, alongside ongoing engagement with local communities, the fishing industry and other stakeholders in the Sullom Voe area to determine cable landfall and substation locations. The targeted operational date of around 2035, described as “ambitious,” implicitly depends on the project reaching FID by the envisaged 2032 timeframe. Until that decision point is reached, ESB continues with technical, environmental and stakeholder workstreams while acknowledging the material financing and market uncertainties that must be resolved before construction funding can be committed and full financial close achieved.