The Mona Offshore Wind Project is a proposed offshore wind farm located in the east Irish Sea, which is being developed by Mona Offshore Wind, a joint venture of bp and Energie Baden-Wurttemberg AG (EnBW).
Mona includes offshore elements, to generate electricity, and both offshore and onshore elements to enable the transmission of the electricity generated to the national grid:
- Wind turbine generators (up to 96 turbines)
- Four offshore substation platforms
- Offshore interconnector cables, inter-array cables and export cables
- Four transition joint bays (connecting the offshore and onshore cables)
- Onshore cables
- Onshore substation
- Connection into the existing Bodelwyddan National Grid Substation
The Mona Offshore Wind Project is classed as a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP). This means that a development consent order (DCO) application has been submitted to the Secretary of State.
The application is for the development of an offshore wind farm with an approximate capacity of 1500MW in the Irish Sea awarded as part of the Round 4 Offshore Wind Licensing Arrangements.
The application was submitted to the Planning Inspectorate for consideration by Mona Offshore Wind Limited on 22 February 2024 and accepted for examination on 21 March 2024.
Following an examination during which the public, statutory consultees and interested parties were given the opportunity to give evidence to the Examining Authority, recommendations were made to the Secretary of State on 16 April 2025.
This is the 95th energy application out of 159 applications examined to date and was again completed by the Planning Inspectorate within the statutory timescale laid down in the Planning Act 2008.
Local communities continue to be given the opportunity of being involved in the examination of projects that may affect them. Local people, the local authority and other interested parties were able to participate in this six-month examination.
The Examining Authority listened and gave full consideration to all local views and the evidence gathered during the examination before making its recommendation to the Secretary of State.
The decision, the recommendation made by the Examining Authority to the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero and the evidence considered by the Examining Authority in reaching its recommendation are publicly available on the project pages of the National Infrastructure Planning website.
Source: GOV.UK
