Green Volt Floating Offshore Wind Farm – Onshore Infrastructure

Aberdeenshire

Green Cat Renewables (GCR) was appointed the lead Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) consultant for the onshore infrastructure of the Green Volt Offshore Wind Farm, a national development. The project comprised an onshore cable route and substation which will connect the offshore wind farm to the national grid. The project starts at the landfall location to the north of Peterhead and crosses Aberdeenshire for approximately 35km to the connection point at National Grid’s New Deer substation.

he project will provide oil & gas (O&G) platforms in the outer Moray Firth with renewable electricity, harnessed from the proposed Green Volt Offshore Windfarm. It will also provide renewable energy to the Scottish mainland via a subsea export cable that will connect onshore to the National Grid.

The project aims to be operational by 2027 and creates the opportunity to mitigate approximately 500,000 tonnes of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) annually. It contributes to reducing greenhouse gas by utilising wind energy, which will create a more sustainable and renewable energy based landscape in Scotland.

GCR were appointed as the EIA lead for the onshore component of the project. The role involved:

• Coordination of the EIA team which comprised GCR as the lead on several technical disciplines (EIA lead, Landscape and Visual, Cultural Heritage and Archaeology, Hydrology, Noise, Contaminated Lands, Air Quality, Agricultural Land) as well as subconsultants for Ecology, Ornithology, Traffic and Transport and Greenhouse Gas Emissions.
• Leading routing and design process through collaboration with the larger project team which comprised the client, the client’s appointed engineer and the client’s appointed land agents
• Preparing material to be presented at public consultation events and attending events to provide information to the public and local landowners along the cable route corridor.
• Management of the preparation of the EIA, including the review process, submitted to Aberdeenshire Council alongside the planning application.

The scale of the project meant there were a large number of constraints to take into consideration along the 35km cable route. This required a high level of organisation within GCR and a high level of cooperation between the project teams.

Key Successes

The GCR team worked with appointed engineers and stakeholder team and client as one cohesive unit which enabled the EIA and planning application to be submitted to Aberdeenshire Council under a very strict timescale (August 2023). The cooperation continued postsubmission and consent was obtained from Aberdeenshire Council in March 2024 which allowed the client to meet the CFD date. This was the result of a massive team effort from all involved.