Background


The Forewind consortium was formed by the four owners RWE, SSE, Statkraft and Statoil in November 2008 in response to The Crown Estate’s third licence round for UK offshore wind farms (Round 3). The following month, it was named “Forewind”.


Under the Round 3 process, The Crown Estate identified nine development zones, and the aim is that they will have the generation capacity to deliver a quarter of the UK’s total electricity needs by 2020.

In January 2010, Forewind was announced as development partner for Dogger Bank, the largest of the Round 3 zones. 

As development partner for Dogger Bank, Forewind has the objective to achieve consent for an agreed target installed capacity of 7.2GW of offshore wind farm projects by 2020.

This figure equates to almost eight per cent of the UK’s projected electricity requirements. If fully developed, it is likely to be the world’s largest offshore wind project.

Definition: forewind, noun (nautical) a favourable wind