Ardersier Energy Transition Facility, located near Inverness, Scotland, secured GBP 400 million of funding, including a GBP 100 million credit facility from the UK National Wealth Fund and Scottish National Investment Bank in 2024.
The construction work on redeveloping the port to serve both fixed-bottom and floating offshore wind projects kicked off in May last year and is expected to be completed in the second half of 2025.
“Ardersier Energy Transition Facility will be operational by late 2025 and will be capable of supporting the deployment of multiple gigawatt-scale offshore wind projects. We are delighted that Cerulean Winds has selected Ardersier as its chosen facility, strengthening our intent to increase green jobs in Scotland, achieve economic growth and support oil and gas operators in the North Sea to rapidly decarbonise their operations,” said Lewis Gillies, CEO of Haventus.
The Cerulean alliance’s first project will be the Aspen development, a 1 GW floating offshore wind farm, located in the Central North Sea approximately 100 kilometres from shore. The project is expected to generate the first power between 2028 and 2029.
In addition to Aspen, Cerulean is also developing Beech and Cedar floating wind projects that will be part of the North Sea Renewables Grid.
“The UK and Scottish Governments have been very supportive, however more is needed. We must act now to capture the domestic economic benefits. If too slow, the building and maintenance of this new technology will become entrenched in established international supply chains before the bow wave of the ScotWind projects even begin, with supply chains rapidly consolidating around early-mover regions in the North Sea and Asia,” said Dan Jackson, Founding Director of Cerulean Winds.
