Dogger Bank South Offshore Wind Farms: development consent order, Planning Act 2008

What changed

DESNZ granted development consent on 14 May 2026 under the Planning Act 2008 for two RWE offshore wind farms in the Dogger Bank South zone: DBS West (100 km from shore) and DBS East (122 km from shore). Each is consented at up to 1.5 GW, for a combined 3 GW across up to 200 turbines, with associated onshore export cables, converter stations, and onward connection to the National Grid.

The DCO is the planning gateway. It authorises construction, operation, maintenance, and decommissioning of both offshore generating stations and the onshore transmission works. Consent is in force immediately, subject to the usual six-week judicial review window. No public money moves on the back of the decision itself.

What this means in practice

The consent is a binary unlock. Without a DCO, nothing gets built; with one, the project is eligible to compete for a Contract for Difference and to progress detailed grid connection works. The decision moves the binding constraint off planning and onto two other gates: a CfD strike price the project can accept, and a grid connection that lands 3 GW of remote North Sea capacity onto the GB transmission system on a timeline that matters.

RWE now needs to clear three things to deliver power:

- A CfD allocation. At 3 GW combined, DBS is one of the larger consented pipelines competing in the next offshore wind round (AR8 budget and parameters are the live variable). If it takes a 15-year CfD, consumers fund the difference between the strike price and the day-ahead reference price through the Supplier Obligation, collected from electricity suppliers and passed through to bills. The strike price clearing in AR8 against current capex and financing conditions is the open question; the consent itself says nothing about whether the project is economic at the prices the auction will support. - A transmission connection. 3 GW landing from 100-122 km offshore means HVDC export cables, onshore converter stations, and transmission reinforcement to move the power from the landing point into demand centres. Under the current regime that reinforcement cost is socialised through TNUoS, with the locational element charging users in the south more than users near the landing point. The price signal points away from where the cost is actually caused. - Supply chain. Monopiles, cables, turbines, vessels. The global offshore wind supply chain is constrained; 200 turbines is a material slot in any OEM's order book.

The project's own publicly indicated commissioning window is late this decade. Whether that holds depends on the three gates above, not on planning.

A note on what the decision does not do. It does not commit to a strike price. It does not commit transmission capacity on a particular timeline. It does not set the levy cost to consumers, because that is determined later through AR allocation. The headline "3 GW consented" is real but it is not 3 GW delivered, and the gap between the two is where the cost stack actually sits.

What happens next

Judicial review window. Six weeks from publication of the DCO to challenge the decision in the High Court. Routine for projects of this scale; rarely changes the outcome but can slow it.

CfD allocation. The next offshore wind round (AR8) is the realistic route to a contract. RWE will need to make a final investment decision conditional on clearing the auction at an acceptable strike price. Budget, parameters, and round timing are set by DESNZ via the AR8 allocation framework and budget notice; these are the documents to watch.

Grid connection milestones. DBS sits in NESO's connections queue with a specified connection date. Under the connections reform programme (Gate 2, TMO4+, strategic connections), connection offers are being re-sequenced against the Strategic Spatial Energy Plan and the Centralised Strategic Network Plan. A project with planning consent and a credible delivery plan is exactly the profile that should move up the queue; a project with planning consent but no CfD and no FID is more ambiguous.

Onshore consents and conditions. The DCO will contain requirements (the planning-act equivalent of conditions) covering pre-construction surveys, ecological mitigation, cable corridor working hours, and the like. Discharge of those requirements is the next operational step before any spade goes in the ground onshore.

Related decisions to watch. NESO's Holistic Network Design follow-up work on offshore coordination; the next CfD allocation round budget notice and parameters; any TNUoS reform output from Ofgem's Connections and Charging programme. Each of these moves a different lever on whether the 3 GW becomes electricity on the system.