Race is on to be crowned green power hub

Published Date: 15 May 2009
By Frank Urquhart

FORTY years ago, Aberdeen emerged victorious in the battle with Dundee for the glittering prize to be chosen as the main base for Britain's fledgling oil and gas industry.
The victory transformed Aberdeen from a provincial city, dependant on small-scale manufacturing, fishing and agriculture, into Europe's undisputed oil capital with one of the highest employment rates in the country.Now the two cities are set to go head to head in a new struggle to secure the accolade as Scotland's renewable energy hub.Yesterday, Dundee City Council joined forces with companies in the local public sector to announce ambitious plans to make the city "Scotland's renewable energy capital".Rival Aberdeen, 66 miles to the north, announced its plans to lay claim to the title seven years ago when the Aberdeen Renewable Energy Group (AREG) was established with the aim of building on the city's worldwide reputation as a leading oil and gas centre to front the drive for green energy developments in Scotland.Dundee, by comparison, has barely left the starting blocks. But yesterday Craig Melville, the vice-convener of Dundee City Council's city development committee, insisted there was still all to play for as plans were unveiled for Dundee Renewables, a group of "major players" from the public and private sector set up in an attempt to lay claim to the "renewable energy capital" title."Dundee is perfectly placed to make the most of the growing renewable energy boom with existing excellent facilities such as the deep-water dock at Dundee harbour, the wave and tidal power of the River Tay, our acknowledged annual hours of sunshine and the ground-breaking research emerging from our universities," Mr Melville said."I think we can attract business here and we are staking our claim. We may be a few years behind Aberdeen, perhaps, but there is major potential here in Dundee." Shona Robison, the Dundee East MSP, backed the campaign. She said: "Dundee narrowly missed out to Aberdeen when oil was discovered in the North Sea, but the city is ideally placed to take advantage of this emerging industry. "Based on our strong record of manufacturing, our city-wide industrial capacity, our highly-skilled and highly-educated workforce and our unbeatable location, we can transform Dundee into a renewable industry powerhouse if we can move quickly enough to grasp this new opportunity."Representatives of the group plan to travel to Aberdeen next week to All Energy 09, the UK's largest renewable energy exhibition and conference, to highlight Dundee's "special features" to industry representatives from across the globe.But Morag McCorkindale, the chief operating officer of AREG, insisted yesterday that she did not regard Dundee's intervention as a threat to Aberdeen's long-standing ambitions.Asked if she was worried about the competition, she said: "No we're not. Scotland is extremely well positioned in the global industry and we think that the opportunity is so great that everyone in Scotland should play their part."The thrust of the Scottish Government's policy these days is very much co-operation rather than competition and we think they are right. Together we're stronger than if we compete with each other."Ms McCorkindale claimed: "The industrial base between Dundee and Aberdeen is completely different. We see fantastic synergies between our industrial base in oil and gas and the global energy industry."We are the international project management, development and technology centre. Their base is quite different and there could even be significant co- operation opportunities here."Accident of geographyABERDEEN'S emergence as the chosen base for Britain's North Sea oil and gas industry is probably down to geography – and fishing – more than anything else.Aberdeen was the nearest landfall with a major port for the first rigs looking for "black gold" in the North Sea and a number of trawlers from the city's then huge deep sea fleet were quickly recruited to help in the search.Aberdeen and Dundee lobbied hard to attract the first oil companies to arrive in Scotland but Aberdeen, by then, was the logical choice.Shell opened its first offices in Aberdeen in 1965 in Union Street. Other companies followed suit.Cynics might suggest that, for the American oil pioneers, Aberdeen's renowned red light district was an added attraction.