The Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has today (12 June) announced its intention of boosting the UK offshore wind industry through the creation of an Offshore Wind Investment Organisation (OWIO).
The OWIO will see government working with industry bodies to ‘boost levels of inward investment and to further stimulate jobs’, according to DECC. The UK government believes that, under a ‘strong growth scenario’, the offshore wind industry could support in excess of 30,000 full time equivalent jobs in the UK by 2020-21, adding £7 billion in value to the UK economy.
Speaking at the announcement of the project, Energy and Business Minister Michael Fallon said: “Offshore wind is a major success story for the UK, and we want to boost levels of inward investment. This will be an important part of our industrial strategy for the sector later this year, and we are creating the Offshore Wind Investment Organisation to drive that activity.
“We already have more installed offshore wind than anywhere else in the world, and this brings enormous economic benefit to our shores, supporting thousands of skilled jobs,” he added.
Funding ‘boost’ to industry
The OWIO is one of the recommendations in the government’s forthcoming industrial strategy, due to be released in the coming months. Among the strategy’s aims are to promote government partnerships with industry and improve access to finance for businesses.
In light of this, Fallon also announced government funding for three industry projects through the Offshore Wind Components Technologies Scheme (OWCTS):
- £540,000 has been awarded to Power Cable Services Ltd, based in Kent, to fund its high voltage subsea jointing technology project;
- Aquasium Technology Ltd, in partnership with Burntisland Fabrications Ltd and TWI, have been granted £769,600 to help fund their cost-effective fabrication project;
- A grant of £728,355 has been awarded to Wind Technologies Ltd (Cambridge) to design, manufacture and test a five megawatt medium speed drive train concept.
The OWCTS is a government project to provide funding to help businesses develop and test offshore wind technology. The current round of funding has a budget of £4 million, with DECC stating it expects to fund between two and six projects, with individual grants expected to range between £250,000 and £2 million.
Fallon announced the government funding during his keynote speech to Renewable UK’s Offshore Wind 2013 conference in Manchester today (12 June), saying: “Through the formation of this industry-led partnership and through our support for innovation projects, we will boost the positive benefits that the offshore wind sector can bring to the UK economy.”
The OWIO follows DECC ’s announcement that it plans to give local communities greater powers to both approve of and reject wind farm projects, allowing them to ‘take charge of managing and generating their own energy’.
However, Friends of the Earth criticised the plan, saying it amounted to ‘rigging the planning system’ to allow a ‘vocal minority’ to block the creation of wind farms.
Read more about the government’s forthcoming industrial strategy.
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