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Renewable UK - Important week for Offshore Wind

By: Chris Anderson 17/11/2015 Maf Smith

General Windfarms

For the first time, over the course of several days, the biggest names in the industry have come together, including RenewableUK, to take part in a series of co-ordinated events to increase awareness and understanding of how far the sector has come, and how far we can go.

It won’t have escaped your notice that we now have more than 10GW of offshore wind capacity either operational, under construction, or with financial support secured – double our current capacity. That’s enough to power 10% of the UK’s electricity needs. Announcements of major offshore infrastructure projects achieving financial close within the last few weeks show that the UK remains the top destination for offshore wind investors. Not bad for an industry which began just 15 years ago with a couple of turbines off the coast of Blyth. We think that’s an achievement that’s worth exploring and amplifying.

Offshore Wind Week began with the publication of a vision document highlighting the fact that we could be getting more than a third of our electricity from this technology by 2030 – and we’ll be employing 50,000 people in the industry and the supply chain to make that happen. Investment is set to increase too, from £9.5 billion over the last five years to £20 billion by 2020 and £30 billion by 2025.

Launching the document, the Co-Chair of the Offshore Wind Industry Council, Benj Sykes, pointed out that this country is facing an energy security challenge and needs low carbon technologies to replace traditional power sources. His comments were timely. At this stage of the year, as regular as clockwork, stories start appearing in the media speculating on whether we have enough capacity to get through the winter without the risk of the lights going out. Offshore wind has an absolutely key role in ensuring that can never happen. As the vision document stated, we can have 30GW of capacity in British waters by 2030 – enough to meet 35% of UK demand from offshore wind alone. And our technology is becoming more productive all the time, with offshore turbine load factors of up to 50%. This is powerful kit.

All of which chimes with the latest recommendations from the Government’s advisory body, the Committee on Climate Change, that the UK should be installing 1-2GW a year in the 2020s, not least because costs are plummeting so rapidly that offshore wind is set to become cheaper than gas by the middle of the next decade.

A report released today focusses on the offshore wind industry’s commitment to reporting annually on the percentage of UK content of projects in British waters. It shows that currently we’re at 43% - well on course to reach our target of 50% by 2020. This means that more and more British companies will be emulating the likes of JDR supplying cables for Greater Gabbard, and Seajacks installing turbines at Sheringham Shoal. We hope the report will help to put to bed once and for all the false narrative that the UK doesn’t see much of the economic benefits of offshore wind.

It’s an area of work which is very much alive this week, with a supply chain event taking place in Lowestoft (at the home of 4C Offshore Limited) organised by the East of England Energy Association to highlight the opportunities for local firms.

But Offshore Wind Week isn’t only about statistics and contracts, important though they undoubtedly are. An event is taking place in the House of Commons today to give MPs the chance to meet apprentices working in offshore wind – living and breathing proof, if you like, that this is a grown-up industry creating much-needed employment for young people with a whole range of qualifications and from a wide range of backgrounds. These people are impassioned about their role in cleaning up the way we generate electricity. It’s inspirational stuff, emphasising the fact that working in this modern, innovative sector is a privilege as well as a livelihood. Looking to the future, this week a Blue Peter presenter is training to work at Burbo Bank offshore wind farm in Liverpool Bay. This is the industry which will be providing employment for our children, and for their sons and daughters, in the decades ahead.

But we need to maintain momentum. And to do that we need to build certainty for investors. We’re asking Government to set a clear trajectory for the next ten years, spelling out how much capacity it wants to see installed and what the financial framework to achieve that looks like. It must be a robust framework. That will help to drive costs down even further. Don’t get me wrong - we’ve had some positive noises, but an industry can’t continue to be built on vague aspiration alone. We need the encouraging words to be fleshed out into actual policies. The offshore wind industry has published its vision – now we need Government to do the same.

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Renewable UK - Important week for Offshore Wind

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