Offshore wind farms could create 50,000 jobs in the East Coast of Scotland

 

Author - David Ross © The Herald Originally published: 25/8/2010

Almost 50,000 people could be employed in jobs related to wind farms off the Scottish coast within a decade, but it could be as low as 1600 without proper investment, a new report claims.

The first comprehensive study of the potential impact of offshore wind on the Scottish economy examines the prospects for offshore sites, largely earmarked for the east coast in two blocks – one off Fife in the firths of Forth and Tay, the other in the Moray Firth.

The report – published yesterday and commissioned by the industry body Scottish Renewables and Scottish Enterprise – offers a range of scenarios for Scottish offshore wind industry development up to 2020. The most positive, which assumes proper investment in the grid, ports and training, sees this new industry creating as many as 48,000 jobs – 28,000 directly and a further 20,000 through related industries – by 2020. This would contribute £7.1 billion of investment to the economy.

However, in the most pessimistic scenario, there is a lack of investment and benefits are limited – the offshore wind industry generates a cumulative value of £224 million in Scotland over the decade, with indirect and induced effects worth about £200m. This would create 900 full-time equivalent jobs directly in the industry in 2020 with indirect and induced effects accounting for 730 jobs.

The Scottish Offshore Wind: Creating an Industry report says Scotland already has major strengths in the supply chain to this new industry, in areas such as cable laying and subsea structures, with a number of Scottish-based businesses already generating significant revenues from offshore wind development.

Jenny Hogan, director of policy at Scottish Renewables, said: “Renewable energy is Scotland’s biggest economic opportunity in a generation, and the development of offshore wind will drive much of the expansion of the sector.

“We already have significant employment in the sector through companies such as BiFab (Burntisland) and Subocean (Aberdeen), but this report confirms that the industry could become one of the country’s major employers over the next decade.

“However, it is also clear that none of this can be taken for granted. Other parts of the UK and ports all over Europe are all fighting tooth and nail to secure investment and the economic benefits that offshore manufacturing and associated activity will bring. With construction of the next generation of offshore wind expected to begin in the middle of the decade, we do not have time to waste.”

She said that just as Scotland’s oil and gas industry had turned into a major global player, so could offshore wind.

Adrian Gillespie, senior director of energy and low-carbon technologies at Scottish Enterprise, said: “This report sets out the scale of the opportunity that the rapidly evolving offshore wind sector offers Scotland’s economy.

“It also highlights how all of these resources we have and the combined efforts across industry, government and academia need to be aligned in such a way that the most ambitious scenario is achieved.”

Mr Gillespie added: “We have already seen substantial new employment in Scotland as a result of offshore wind in areas such as design and project management, subsea services and offshore wind substructures and plant.

“This report shows us that this is just the beginning however, and that if we can build on this momentum we will have a very substantial new industry firmly grounded in Scotland.”