Why floating offshore wind can put Scotland at heart of world-leading industrial renaissance
Floating offshore wind would help deliver energy security for the UK and create good jobs in places like Ardersier in the Highlands
Growing up on the Isle of Lewis, I would join my father, uncles and cousins for the back-breaking annual ritual of cutting and drying the peats. That’s how we islanders heated our homes when the Atlantic winter gales battered the villages along the coast.
There is a point to this reminiscing. Peat, like coal, oil and gas, is a finite resource. For centuries in the UK, we thrived on energy independence. But now, as the world shifts to electricity – and demand grows – we are increasingly and uncomfortably reliant on others. Until government re-establishes the UK’s energy security, we remain exposed to supply and price shocks.
The resource available to us in abundance is wind – and, in large part, low-cost energy independence lies in harnessing its power. There are two kinds of offshore wind: “fixed”, where the turbine is directly attached to the seabed; and “floating”, where it sits on a floating foundation secured by moorings in deeper waters.
A world first
Fixed offshore wind is well established, with many windfarms already in place. Floating offshore wind (Flow) is nascent. But excitingly, the UK Government has given a contract for difference – the mechanism by which developers are guaranteed a minimum price for their electricity – to the world’s first commercial-scale floating windfarm. So, the UK is unusually, but necessarily, going first.
Flow takes advantage of the stronger, more reliable winds further offshore. Its components are too large to be shipped from yards in Asia or the Middle East, meaning the supply chain of assemblers and manufacturers is incentivised to locate in the UK. Thus, Flow will not only serve energy security but also drive economic growth and create much-needed jobs.
There has been significant criticism of the lack of ‘local content’ in fixed offshore projects, with the components largely produced and shipped from overseas. Flow, however, could be substantially different. The scale involved offers an industrial renaissance to our coastal communities, and the opportunity for the UK to export expertise and equipment to the European markets that follow behind.
New future for fabrication yard
For too long, other countries have banked the industrial profit of the UK’s energy production. Flow presents the UK with the chance to claw that back. At Ardersier, we are transforming a former oil and gas fabrication yard into the largest facility in the UK dedicated to offshore wind deployment.
In the 70s and 80s, the site employed 4,500 men and women and put 600,000 tons of oil and gas rigs into the North Sea. With Flow, we can recover some of that industrial presence for the Highlands and other parts of the UK. We can give young people high-quality jobs where they grow up, rather than having to leave, as I did, to seek a career far from home.
The country is putting plans in place to recapture the energy security and independence we once took for granted. Delivering Flow would help secure substantial provision of the nation’s power needs from offshore wind, in perpetuity. We would lead the world.
It would be a terrible waste to lose that leadership position and miss not only the benefit of the electrons, but the supply chain and its jobs. Seize Flow, and this power source will benefit us all.
Lewis Gillies is chief executive of Haventus, owner of Ardersier Energy Transition Facility
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