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Offshore Wind Powering the Future

By: Chris Anderson 20/11/2015 Stephen Rose SSE

General Windfarms

This week SSE has been marking Offshore Wind Week (November 16-20) and Stephen Rose of SSE has been supporting both employees and the business at two key events.

A new vision document released this week predicts that offshore wind could meet 35 per cent of the UK’s electricity demand by 2030 and support 50,000 skilled jobs.

The UK is already the world leader in deployment of this fast developing renewable energy technology with over 3.7 gigawatts (3,700 megawatts) of capacity - enough to power three million homes - built in the last five years alone.

In 2008 SSE became joint owner of what would be, at that point in time, the world’s largest offshore wind farm: Greater Gabbard. The 140 turbine, 504MW site was installed in one of the deepest water locations in the outer Thames Estuary and, being the furthest wind farm site from shore at the time, was the first in the UK to use a helicopter for its daily service needs.

SSE currently has six apprentices training at the site and on Tuesday I travelled to the House of Commons to see Kyle Pickering, a Wind Turbine Technician apprentice, named Apprentice of the Year by Humberside Engineering Training Association (HETA), where he studied as part of his course.

The presentation was carried out by Peter Aldous, MP for Lowestoft , which is also home to Greater Gabbard’s Operations Base.

Tuesday night also saw the first episode of documentary Power to the People hit our screens on BBC FOUR, featuring the team at Greater Gabbard.

I was very keen that the team at site took part in the documentary, we are extremely proud of the site and in what we achieved in the last three years.

We believe we run one of the biggest and best offshore wind farms in the world and that brings an enormous sense of pride when everything clicks into place and works.

Thursday was our turn to welcome Peter Aldous MP to SSE, he visited Greater Gabbard to learn more about the supply chain opportunities offered through our offshore developments.

He was welcomed by Sid Anverali, General Manager of the site, who detailed the level of investment and jobs our offshore sites support. He was taken out by helicopter to visit the site’s 140 turbines, which can generate enough electricity to power 530,000 homes every year.

Moving forward, what we now need to see is a clear pathway for offshore wind through to 2025. This will provide the UK with the best opportunity for cost effective decarbonisation and ensure that we maximise the export opportunity for the UK supply chain.

The next offshore wind project being taken forward by SSE in partnership with others is Beatrice Offshore Windfarm Ltd (BOWL) – located in the Outer Moray Firth off the north coast of Scotland.

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Offshore Wind Powering the Future

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