When was COWRIE set up?

COWRIE was first established by The Crown Estate as a trust fund in 2001 when the first round of UK offshore windfarm development was announced. Before this time no large scale commercial windfarms had been built at sea around the UK so very little was known about their potential environmental impact. As part of the selection and awards process The Crown Estate required successful developers to make a refundable deposit. The interest accumulating on the deposits from the 18 successful developers was used to set up COWRIE and the funds have been used to undertake a number of environmental research studies. COWRIE was not registered as a company at this time.