Offshore Wind Capacity

Current Wind Capacity Total in Scotland:
The current renewable wind capacity (both offshore and onshore) in Scotland is over 11GW in total. This makes up 39% of the UKs wind capacity, and approximately 5% of the European and 1% of the global total installed wind capacity (Gray, 2023).

Current Offshore Wind Capacity in Scotland & the North East:
Looking at offshore wind specifically, offshore wind capacity in Scotland makes up 2GW of the 11GW total renewable wind capacity. This 2GW makes up 16% of the UK installed offshore wind capacity, and approximately 7% of European, and 3% of the global total installed offshore wind capacity (Gray, 2023).

Scotland has 10.2GW of offshore wind projects in development, this will make up the majority of Scottish Government's target of 11GW by 2030 when they are complete. These developments will be completed before new projects in grounds leased by ScotWind and INTOG will be complete (Offshore Wind, n.d.) - see Fig. 1 for map of all offshore wind projects as of March 2025. Along the East Grampian Coast and in the North Sea, examples of offshore wind projects include (Offshore Wind, 2025):

• Operational Sites such as Hywind Scotland (0.03GW capacity), Aberdeen Bay (0.093GW), and Kincardine (0.048GW).
• In Planning Sites such as Ossian (3.6GW capacity) and Muir Mhor (1.0GW)
• ScotWind Fixed offshore wind projects including Morven (2.9GW capacity) and Bowdun (1.0GW), and ScotWind Floating projects such as Campion Wind (2.0GW capacity).
• INTOG projects such as Flora (0.05GW capacity) and Salamander (0.1GW)

Future Wind Capacity in Scotland:
The Scottish Government's aim is to grow capacity to 20GW of onshore wind and 11GW of offshore wind by 2030. This 11GW of offshore wind in Scotland would comprise 22% of the UK ambition for 50GW of offshore wind capacity, and 10% of the EU ambition for 111GW offshore renewables by 2030 (Gray, 2023).

If Scotland achieved 11GW of offshore wind capacity and 20Gw of onshore wind capacity, this would generate over 85TWh of renewable electricity - it is estimated this capacity could power approximately 31 million households (which is more than every household in the UK) (Gray, 2023).

Investment in wind capacity will also support direct and indirect jobs, and bring Gross Added Value (GVA), bringing economic benefit (Gray, 2023).