A coalition of energy companies and the Crown Estate (who owns the land) are hammering out a deal to build six gigawatts of wind power off the coast of Scotland. You heard that right, gigawatts. That’s the equivalent, roughly, of seven humongous nuclear power plants and will account for tens of billions of dollars in investment.

The Crown Estate (that’s right…the Queen) owns the rights to develop the land off the coast of the U.K.. They’re working with nine different energy companies on the deal, and have granted each of them access to build wind farms on specific plots of the continental shelf.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the same as the projects being a done deal. They each have to be regulated by the Scottish government (wouldn’t it be simpler if the UK were still a monarchy?) That isn’t expected to be completed until sometime in 2010, and then the projects will have to find funding. Depending on how well the economy recovers (or doesn’t) by 2011, that could be a tall order.

Via Earth2Tech