Scotland has sights on 'Saudi Arabia' of marine energy as firms bid to build big windfarms

Published Date: 19 October 2008
By Jeremy Watson

SCOTLAND has taken a major step towards becoming a green energy powerhouse after more than a dozen companies applied to build a series of giant offshore windfarms.
The Crown Estate, the agency which owns the British seabed out to the 12-mile territorial limit, has revealed that 14 private development consortiums are bidding to build the farms in 23 locations off the east and west coasts.Each farm is expected to have scores of 1,000-tonne turbines, up to 300ft high, anchored to the seabed and spread over tens of square miles. Although only a selection of the farms will be built, each one is expected to produce around 500 megawatts of power – enough to light about 300,000 homes – and make a significant contribution to Alex Salmond's dream of turning Scotland into the "Saudi Arabia" of marine energy.Difficulties and long delays in gaining planning permission for large onshore windfarms because of environmental concerns are fuelling the move offshore into territorial waters. Advances in deep-water windfarm technology – gained from North Sea oil industry expertise – have made offshore farms more viable.They are likely to be sited several miles offshore to avoid opposition to their visual intrusion that has dogged onshore turbine developments. Potential locations include the northern Irish Sea and the outer reaches of the Solway Firth off the coast of Dumfries and Galloway, where undersea cables could be constructed to connect the farms to the national grid via existing nuclear power stations at Hunterston and Chapelcross. Sea areas to the east of the Angus and Lothian coasts are also strong contenders.Scotland currently produces 4.5 gigawatts of renewable energy, putting it just 400MW away from meeting its targets of generating 31% of its electricity demand from renewable sources by 2011. At a conference earlier this month, Salmond said he was confident of meeting the future target of producing 50% energy from renewables by 2020 as by that time there would be "gigantic stuff offshore".As an incentive, the Crown Estate is offering exclusive development rights for locations to developers and will also pay for up to 50% of the cost of gaining planning permission, a sum likely to be worth millions of pounds.The Crown Estate opened the bidding for Scottish territorial waters in June, saying the rapid development of offshore wind capacity was central to the delivery of the UK's share of the European Union target of 20% renewable energy by 2020.The deadline for applications was on October 10. Ian Pitchard, the Crown Estate's head of offshore operations, said: "We are encouraged by the strong response. There have been applications from 14 developers involving 23 locations spread around the Scottish coast."The Crown Estate will now carry out an initial assessment of the applications, with decisions being made in December. Scottish Natural Heritage, the Government's nature adviser, says it has been approached for environmental advice by a number of developers. It revealed in a report that it has also been told by the SNP Government to "ensure that conservation issues and other potential constraints are addressed and do not create a barrier to development".The minimum size of development asked for by the Crown Estate, which will earn money for the Treasury from leasing seabed sites, was 100MW, but commercial windfarms can now be five times that size.Among the likeliest candidates to be among the developers are Scottish and Southern Energy, which is already involved in building the world's largest offshore windfarm, at a cost of £1.2bn, off the Suffolk coast. Another will be Ramco, an Aberdeen-based energy company. Jason Ormiston, chief executive of the Scottish Renewables Forum, an industry lobby body, said: "We are pleasantly surprised by the level of interest. It seems we are gearing up for major developments off the coast of Scotland but at this stage we don't know whether we will get a handful or many more.A spokesman for Ramco offshoot SeaEnergy said: "We are interested in bidding, especially as this is our home patch. There is a better wind resource out at sea and you don't have the problems of visual impact that you have on land."Environmental groups – many of which have opposed windfarm developments on land because of their visual impact – welcomed the move offshore. Dan Barlow, head of policy at WWF Scotland, said: "We have tough renewable energy targets to meet and offshore windfarms will help us to do that."