The Crown Estate has today announced it will be offering exclusivity agreements to companies and consortia for 10 sites for development of offshore windfarms within Scottish territorial waters.

The 10 agreements will be made to nine companies and consortia, and in total the sites have the potential to generate more than 6 GW of offshore wind power.

Rob Hastings, Director of the Marine Estate at The Crown Estate, said: "The award of 10 exclusivity agreements is excellent news for the companies involved, The Crown Estate and for Scotland as a whole. We very much look forward to working with the companies on the development of these sites and the realisation of the enormous potential that these sites have to offer."

The Crown Estate believes that this project is a positive start in addressing the issue of climate change. There is a government priority on this, and we are working hard to help achieve these targets while recognising these need to be balanced with nature conservation which will be fully considered in the environmental impact assessment. There has been, and will continue to be, a comprehensive dialogue with key stakeholders throughout the whole process in order to ensure that any concerns can be taken into account at an early stage.

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Jason Ormiston, Chief Executive of green energy trade body, Scottish Renewables said: "Today heralds an exciting phase in the progress of the renewable energy industry in Scotland. The combined capacity of these projects will make a massive contribution to Scotland's efforts in tackling climate change, helping to deliver reliable and affordable supplies of electricity to consumers and, very importantly, the Scottish economy.

"Now the industry, Government, The Crown Estate, Ofgem and the wide range of interests which use the sea must work together to deliver this exciting potential."

The 10 exclusivity agreements are designed to allow developers to begin initial survey and consultation processes for their sites while the Scottish Government conducts a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) for offshore wind within Scottish territorial waters.

The SEA was launched on 23 January 2009 and the Scottish Government has committed to completing this within a 12 month period, and The Crown Estate will work closely them on the SEA process.

(GK/JM)