What is ScotWind ? It ’ s a programme which will lease areas of the seabed around Scotland for successful wind farm developments .

Why is it attracting such attention ? It ’ s the first round of Offshore Wind Leasing in Scottish waters for a decade , and as much as 10GW new generating capacity is up for grabs . Bidding closed in July , and in all , Crown Estate Scotland received 74 applications .

Who are the front runners ? In the left corner , we have Shell and ScottishPower Renewables / Iberdrola , whose portfolio includes over 2GW of operational offshore wind , over 11GW of offshore wind in development and over 700 MW of floating wind ; in the right , bp and EnBW , which is bidding for 2.9GW . Ocean Winds , a 50-50 joint venture by Spain ’ s EDP Renewables ( EDPR ) and France ’ s ENGIE , is also bidding for five sites .

When will we know who ’ s won ? Crown Estate Scotland is expected to announce the results in early 2022 .

� TOKAMAK ENERGY Tokamak Energy plans to double its workforce as well as the size of its UK facility , delivering a significant boost for UK fusion development and commercialisation .

� NEPTUNE ENERGY Neptune Energy has successfully installed and tested the world ’ s longest trace-heated subsea production pipeline at its operated Fenja field in the Norwegian sea . The 37km electrically trace-heated ( ETH ) pipe-in-pipe solution will transport oil from the field to the Njord A platform , operated by Equinor .

� UK GOVERNMENT The UK Government must end a year of climate contradictions and “ stop blundering on high carbon choices ”, according to the Climate Change Committee as it released 200 policy recommendations in a progress to Parliament update .

� ELECTRIC VEHICLE INVESTMENTS Electric cars ’ reduced fuel costs are " all but redundant " when compared with their high prices . That ' s one of the key findings from new Which ? research , which compared three electric cars ’ costs to their petrol counterparts over three years .

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