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Major UK offshore wind farm project wins planning consent

Consent follows that for sister offshore wind project Mona and comes as boost to UK renewable energy goals

UK energy secretary Ed Miliband.
UK energy secretary Ed Miliband.Photo: DESNZ/Zara Farrar
Journalist

Developer JERA Nex bp and German utility EnBW have won planning consent for the 1.5GW Morgan offshore wind project in the Irish Sea.

The UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero granted consent to the project today, it announced.

Morgan will consist of up to 96 wind turbines and four offshore substation platforms.

The project is being developed by JERA Nex bp – a recently formed joint venture between Japan’s JERA group and British oil major BP – and EnBW. Before JERA Nex bp was officially formed earlier this year, BP had been the co-developer of the project with the German utility.

Sarah Pirie, programme director for EnBW, said that securing the Development Consent Order for the project is a “significant achievement”.

“It provides the certainty we need to move into the next phase with our supply chain and key stakeholders who have supported us to date and represents a major step forward in delivering the kind of low-carbon infrastructure the UK urgently needs.”

Mark Hudson, programme director for JERA Nex bp, added that it is a “major milestone” for the project.

The approval comes after the developers secured planning consent for Mona, a sister 1.5GW project, early last month.
Morgan has secured its planning consent just a day after the application window for this year’s UK Contracts for Difference (CfD) auction, AR7, closed. However, new rules introduced by the government this year allow for unconsented fixed bottom offshore wind projects to bid into CfD auctions, meaning it could still have entered.
The consent comes just weeks after JERA Nex bp and EnBW reached a landmark agreement with Danish developer Orsted on how to mitigate wind wake effects from Mona and Morgan.
This had been a major flashpoint between the developers, with Orsted warning in planning proceedings that wind wakes the two projects would generate posed an existential threat to its 1.85GW of operational wind farms in the Irish Sea.

UK energy secretary Ed Miliband nodded to these objections by withholding the Mona permit unless the developers either presented him with a wake effects mitigation plan or, alternatively, showed that they had reached a mitigation agreement with Orsted.

Miliband had snapped at BP and EnBW in his planning consent decision for Mona over their previously “unhelpful” behaviour in regards to resolving the issue of wake losses, one that has flared up in numerous other planning proceedings for UK offshore wind farms.
(Copyright)

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Published 29 August 2025, 15:39Updated 29 August 2025, 16:34
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