King Charles III's Crown Estate, which owns Britain's seabed, said on Tuesday it will invest up to 400 million pounds ($543 million) in the country's offshore wind supply chain.
The investment is intended to support the construction of new infrastructure, including ports, supply chain manufacturing, and research and testing facilities, to enable the deployment of offshore wind across Britain, it said.
One of the barriers to further deployment of offshore wind is insufficient supply chain capacity. Britain plans to largely decarbonise its electricity sector by 2030 and wants to increase renewable power, particularly offshore wind, to insulate it from fossil fuel price shocks.
The capital will be channelled through two programmes. A 350 million pound supply chain investment programme will be established to invest in the construction of new port and supply chain infrastructure.
The Crown Estate also has another 50 million pound programme which supports early-stage project development and that is currently running its second funding round to award up to 15 million pounds to also include UK ports and port-related infrastructure. That closes for applications on June 27.
Last month, the Crown Estate gave the go-ahead to expand capacity at seven wind farm projects on current seabed leases.
($1 = 0.7367 pounds)
(Reuters - Reporting by Nina ChestneyEditing by Shri Navaratnam)