The government has announced its intention to establish a future generation of offshore connection hubs by combining offshore wind and electricity interconnections.
Ministers want to address the challenges experienced in the industry and reduce barriers to offshore wind development, while keeping the costs of projects low.
The new plan aims to explore allowing clusters of offshore wind farms to connect all in one and directly into interconnectors.
The new approach is predicted to enable Britain to sell excess clean energy to other countries.
The government believes that with an increased ambition to generate 50GW of offshore wind by 2030, constructing individual point-to-point connections for each offshore wind farm could become a major barrier to the delivery of new offshore wind.
Ministers pledged to strengthen legal and regulatory clarity over the licensing of future multi-purpose interconnectors to remove these risks.
Energy Minister Greg Hands said: “We recognise that there is currently a growing impact on the coastal communities which host offshore wind infrastructure.
“As we power up our plans to become more independent, with growing supply of clean energy, we need to minimise local impacts.”
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