Mr. Pat Keating:

Yes, the technology is there. The broad consensus among the industry is that the technology is there. We refer to production at scale. The industrialisation and the build-out at scale needs to happen. Based on the experience of fixed offshore, once we get into that production cycle and facility with efficiencies of scale and all of that, the costs of floating offshore will come down. This is evidenced by the fact that, at those floating offshore auctions in France, UK and California, there have been real bids. People have put their money on the table to build floating offshore. The Scottish auction had 17 GW of floating offshore. Of 65 applicants, only 15 were successful in the auction round. That gives an indication of the level of interest. The sector, and the private sector, is committed to this. They are satisfied that the technology is there, but absolutely the costs need to come down from where they are today. However, the consensus is that once we start producing at scale, we will get the efficiencies of scale to bring the costs down, or the levelised cost of electricity, LCOE, which is the cost of producing electricity. We can take comfort from the scale of the interest in those offshore auctions that have happened in other jurisdictions.