French company TotalEnergies plans to launch a pilot project for floating offshore wind turbines to supply renewable energy to the Culzean offshore platform in the British North Sea.

The 3 MW floating wind turbine will be built two kilometres west of the Culzean platform, 220 kilometres off the east coast of Scotland.

The wind turbine will be installed on a modular, lightweight, semi-submersible floating hull developed by Ocergy, allowing for rapid assembly and optimized costs, TotalEnergies said.

The turbine is expected to be fully operational by the end of next year and will provide around 20 percent of Culzean’s electricity needs, the company said, thereby reducing the plant’s greenhouse gas emissions.

The pilot project was selected in Crown Estate Scotland’s Innovation and Targeted Oil & Gas (INTOG) leasing round in 2023.

Through the INTOG procedure, project developers could apply for seabed rights to develop offshore wind power projects that either reduce emissions from the oil and gas industry in the North Sea – by supplying renewable electricity directly to the oil and gas infrastructure (TOG) – or comprise small-scale (IN) innovative projects with a capacity of 100 MW or less.

The planned projects have a capacity of up to 449 MW for IN and up to 5 GW for TOG projects. Crown Estate Scotland will offer a seabed lease of 25 years for IN projects and 50 years for TOG projects.

TotalEnergies is responsible for around 30 percent of gas production on the British continental shelf and produces an average of 142,000 barrels of oil per day, TotalEnergies said.

The company is implementing its Integrated Power strategy in the UK, which combines renewable energy generation and flexible power generation capacity. Its renewable energy portfolio in the UK includes 1.1 GW of gross capacity (Seagreen offshore wind farm) and 4.5 GW under development.