Triton Knoll Offshore Wind Farm Ltd. is setting up two funds to support the local communities living close to the onshore infrastructure of the 860MW wind farm located some 32km offshore Lincolnshire, UK.
The first fund is the GBP 500,000 One-Off Construction Community Fund, which will be delivered to local areas neighbouring the onshore electrical system works. It will open for first applications once the onshore construction works get underway, which is expected mid-2018.
The second fund, an Annual Community Fund of GBP 40,000 per year, will focus on communities neighbouring the landfall location near Anderby Creek, as well as the above ground infrastructure at Bicker Fen, and will be available for every year that the wind farm is in operation.
During November, local communities were asked for their feedback on how each of the funds should operate. So far, nearly 200 responses have been submitted by communities in the vicinity of the project’s onshore electrical system.
According to Triton Knoll, the responses are still arriving and will be accepted until the end of the year. Once all of the data is input and analysis undertaken, a report on preferences and the way forward will be produced and reported back locally. The project will then look to appoint a decision-making panel from within the local area and an administrator to deliver the practicalities of the fund.
“Triton Knoll will deliver a very carefully targeted fund. We think that it’s only fair that causes local to the new project infrastructure benefit the most from these new funds,” innogy’s Jon Darling , Senior Project Manager at Triton Knoll, said.
“We’ve been overwhelmed by the amount of feedback we’ve received so far, and by the really constructive and innovative ideas that we’ve picked up from the consultation drop-in sessions. The real hard work now begins, with a full assessment of the themes and priorities for the funds, how people want it to be managed locally, and how it will be administered in the future.”
The Triton Knoll offshore wind farm started off as a 50%-50% partnership between innogy and Statkraft. However, innogy agreed to buy Statkraft’s 50% stake after the project reaches the financial investment decision (FID), expected mid-2018.