Norway's Equinor bids in Scottish offshore wind lease round

OSLO (Reuters) - Equinor said on Monday it submitted a bid for offshore floating wind power project in Scotland's leasing round as the Norwegian energy firm continues to develop its North Sea offshore wind cluster and deepen its presence across the UK.

The company will meet fierce competition for leases, with the Scottish programme attracting interest from offshore wind developers and oil producers seeking to increase their renewable power portfolios.

The ScotWind leasing round is a good strategic fit with our ambition to expand North Sea offshore wind capacity, Equinor said in a statement.

The firm already operates the small Hywind floating offshore wind farm (30 megawatt), off the northeast coast of Scotland, and is a partner in several other British offshore wind farms.

The Scottish leasing round offered a great opportunity to develop large floating offshore wind projects at scale, Equinor added.

Crown Estate Scotland's ScotWind wind leasing tender is its first for a decade, and is forecast to lead the development of around 10 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity, with much of this expected to use floating wind technology.

Norwegian offshore wind developer Magnora Offshore wind also confirmed on Monday that it submitted application for two zones in Scotland together with TechnipFM.

The results of the ScotWind leasing round are expected to be announced early next year.

(Reporting by Nora Buli, Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)