In June, 2025, the Crown Estate announced it had awarded leases for two new floating offshore wind sites in the Celtic Sea.
These new developments are projected to supply up to 4.5GW of secure, renewable energy to the UK’s grid – enough to power over four million homes. It’s a landmark moment, but it’s also only the beginning of expanded efforts to boost the renewables industry off the coasts of Wales and South West England.
The new FLOW farms will be some of the biggest of their kind in the world. Momentum is building, but uncertainty still surrounds timelines, infrastructure readiness, and long-term environmental conditions and projected changes.
At NeuWave, we saw this coming – and conducted operational viability tests across key sites in the Celtic Sea.
Here’s what the Leasing Round 5 outcome means for the industry (short and long term), and what our test results highlight about the region’s viability and future.
Reliable hindcast data for underdeveloped coastal zones…
Only NeuWave’s purpose-built environmental intelligence tools offer actionable, site-specific insights backed by high-res MetOcean data to help guide confident offshore development decisions – from site assessment to successful operations.
Leasing Round 5 – Key updates and outcomes
The Crown Estate confirmed two lease allocations in June 2025:
- Equinor and Gwynt Glas (PDA 3)
- ESB and EDF Renewables UK & Ireland (PDA 1)
PDA 2 will be finalised by autumn 2025. Together, these projects will form some of the world’s largest FLOW developments.
“Floating offshore wind will be transformative for economic growth […]
unlocking thousands of jobs, […] bolstering our energy security
and delivering industrial renewal.”
– Ed Miliband (Energy Secretary)
These developers bring proven offshore expertise, carefully selected to fortify the UK’s emerging offshore wind sector. Successful project delivery will be supported by plans to invest £400 million into regional infrastructure and supply chains – with the UK is positioning itself as a global industry leader.
But leasing is only the start, and turbine construction is still a long way off. Project success depends on real-time delivery – and smart decisions backed by reliable, high-resolution data.
The regional impact: Cornwall, Wales, and South West England
The Celtic Sea region has huge untapped FLOW potential. Intended to bring not only more secure, clean energy to the grid; the new developments will bolster the local job market, encourage infrastructure improvements, and foster future regional investment and industry success.
What does that mean in practice? Greater focus on the scalability and longevity of developments around the bourgoing industries across the Wales and South West England coastlines.
These benefits are unlikely to be immediate, and developers will need to focus on collaborative, active community engagement in the meantime to maintain public support.
The Celtic Sea region isn’t plug-and-play
The shift towards FLOW mitigates a number of challenges posed by traditional turbines, but it’s not a simple silver bullet. Despite promising projections, the Celtic Sea region is underdeveloped and, like most prospective sites, poses unique operational challenges.
Next-gen navigation and environmental reporting tools, like the NeuWave platform, can offer support through alternative ports and routing options. But local ports (Talbot and Bristol) require expansion and infrastructure updates to accommodate increased activity; and vessel shortages will need to be addressed before any significant development can commence.
The Celtic Sea is also comparatively exposed, and changing environmental conditions (both historically and over the coming decades) will need to be considered at all project stages. The green-light is flickering on, but development is still constrained by a fundamental shortcoming: fragmented, inadequate data.
Most offshore operational timelines are built using 30 km-resolution legacy reanalysis models. They’re the current industry standard, yet miss critical coastal dynamics – like wave refraction, nearshore dissipation, and seabed interaction – that lead to inaccurate forecasts and overly conservative conditions assumptions.
Safe days are classed as unsafe; downtime is overstated; and opportunities are lost.
This has knock-on effects everywhere: port planning, vessel mobilisation, supply chain confidence, job training schemes. Delays don’t happen in isolation, and stakeholders need high-resolution, site-specific intelligence to move projects from intent to successful execution.
Without this, floating offshore wind in the Celtic Sea risks stalling before planning even truly begins.
How NeuWave can support offshore industries in the Celtic Sea
The South West coastlines of the UK are ripe for floating offshore wind development, and we anticipated this momentum at NeuWave. Over the past year, we’ve conducted more than 100 high-resolution hindcast simulations across the region, refining our models to capture the Celtic Sea’s unique local dynamics.
Each test was meticulously calibrated; by integrating bathymetric data and localised environmental factors, we were able to access nearshore effects often overlooked by less precise 30km models. Crucially, NeuWave models are validated using three separate wave buoys (each located in distinct locations) to capture a wide range of environmental variability.
Our best calibration for the year 2010 yielded excellent results for both summer and winter months, with an average standard error of under 0.003 metres and a regression coefficient of 0.9 out of a perfect 1 at the Penzance Waverider, indicating excellent agreement with the observed buoy data.
Because we can model wave behaviour precisely even in shallow, complex coastal zones, we’re able to identify local sheltering zones around development sites. That allows operators to maximise weather windows and plan safe fallback scenarios when conditions deteriorate.
NeuWave data includes nearshore environmental conditions – smashing the industry standard, even in the most shallow zones. Our tools are already being used to assess site-specific loading conditions, project asset wear and fatigue, and quantify environmental risks.
Every NeuWave report is IEC-compliant and our automated delivery system dramatically cuts idle time – keeping essential projects moving forward. Access reliable, high-res data through our intuitive, interactive dashboard:
- Dynamic route planning for support vessels
- Forecast-informed scheduling blended with historic trends
- Real-time scenario testing for worst-case or optimal windows
For offshore wind developers? This means fewer delays, more accurate damage assessments, and data you can actually use.
What’s next for UK FLOW developments?
It’s been over 25 years since the country laid the first foundations for offshore wind; and in 2025 the UK has refocused on its future environmental goals, and realigned with renewables targets. Investment has ramped back up, and new regions – such as the Celtic Sea – are being explored.
But it’s only through the adoption and implementation of intelligent environmental analysis, real-time tooling, and future-proofed infrastructure floating offshore wind can open an exciting new frontier.
To realise the transformative potential of floating offshore wind, the UK needs accurate, actionable data, supported by accessible, built-for-purpose infrastructure.
Here at NeuWave? We’re ready when you are.
Site-specific reporting to support future-focused offshore development…
Replace ineffective legacy models and fragmented datasets with tools that serve your project’s best interests. Offering ultra-high resolution MetOcean insights, dynamic navigation planning, and regulation-ready reporting to bring the UK’s offshore wind industry into the future.
