Crown Estate launches accelerated tender for 1.5GW Morgan offshore wind farm, signs CCS lease

The Crown Estate has opened a competitive auction for the 1.5GW Morgan offshore wind farm in the Irish Sea after the previous developer pulled out, while separately leasing seabed for the UK's first carbon capture project to reuse existing infrastructure.

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The Crown Estate has launched a competitive tender for the Morgan offshore wind farm in the Irish Sea, which has a capacity of up to 1.5 GW. The move follows the previous developer's decision to halt work on the project earlier in 2026. Rights to develop the site could be awarded by the end of the year.

Morgan already holds a Development Consent Order for its windfarm assets, granted in August 2025. A DCO decision for the transmission assets, which are shared with the adjacent 480 MW Morecambe project, is expected in September 2026. The wind farm also has a grid connection agreement with the National Energy System Operator.

The tender uses a rising clock auction format, with bidders submitting a Site Exclusivity Fee that will be paid in phased installments over 20 years once the lease begins. Submissions are due over the summer of 2026, with the auction and selection of a preferred bidder anticipated by the end of the year.

This process is separate from the Crown Estate's Offshore Wind Leasing Round 6, announced in March 2026, which targets approximately 6 GW off the northeast coast of England and is expected to launch in the first half of 2027.

In a separate development, the Crown Estate has entered into a lease with Liverpool Bay CCS Ltd for a carbon dioxide transport and storage project. The initiative is the first carbon capture and storage project in the UK to repurpose existing infrastructure. Liverpool Bay CCS provides the transport and storage backbone for the HyNet industrial decarbonisation cluster.