Hornsea Project Three accepted for examination

An application (including an Environmental Statement) for Development Consent was submitted in May 2018 for Ørsted’s Hornsea Project Three offshore wind farm. RPS is delighted to have supported Ørsted, as the lead EIA consultant for the project, throughout the pre-application phase. The application for Hornsea Project Three has now been accepted by the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and the project will therefore shortly be progressing to the examination phase. The full set of accepted application documents (including the Environmental Statement) are available from the Hornsea Project Three website and the National Infrastructure Planning website.

RPS were the lead EIA supplier, offshore and onshore, for both the Hornsea Project One offshore wind farm (a 1.2 GW project consented in December 2014) and Hornsea Project Two offshore wind farm (a 1.8 GW project consented in August 2016). Following RPS’ proven track record on both of these projects, RPS has provided lead EIA services, including project management, consenting and technical services, throughout the pre-application phase (from Scoping in 2016, through to submission of the Environmental Statement in 2018) for Hornsea Project Three. Hornsea Project Three has the potential to be the world’s largest offshore wind farm proposed to date with up to 300 turbines, located 121 km from the Norfolk coast, generating enough energy for well over 2 million UK homes if built out to full capacity.

For all three Hornsea projects, RPS has provided a number of full time project coordinators to manage the EIAs and has undertaken the majority of the assessments, both offshore and onshore, by in-house technical specialists. The offshore and onshore technical consultancy provided by RPS has included a comprehensive range of marine and terrestrial, human, biological and physical environmental topics.

Stuart Livesey, Ørsted’s Hornsea Project Three Development Manager commented: “RPS have been an integral part of the Hornsea Three Consent and Stakeholder interaction team as the lead EIA consultant, providing a high level of expertise, showing great flexibility in adapting to an ever evolving project scope and timeline.”

RPS will continue to provide lead EIA services (including the provision of full time project coordinators, and offshore and onshore technical advice) during the examination phase of Hornsea Project Three. A decision on the application for Development Consent for Hornsea Project Three is expected by the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in the latter half of 2019 following the examination phase.