North Sea wind farms power grid plans unveiled
Nov 15 2008 by Adrian Pearson, The Journal
THOUSANDS of jobs have been predicted as plans for a North Sea “wind supergrid” were revealed.
The European Union has backed calls to turn the North Sea into a massive power grid made up of potentially hundreds of wind farms.
Energy experts last night predicted the grid would transform the region’s economy.
The North East now faces competition from Norwegian businesses and universities as both seek to attract the greatest share of an estimated to £7bn annual contribution to the economy.
Up to 50,000 jobs would be created nationally if investors can be convinced that the UK is leading the way, with nearly half of those jobs likely to be in the North.
EU civil servants have produced a Strategic Energy Review which will see billions of euros spent creating the supergrid in order to reduce dependency on Russian fuel and meet renewable energy commitments. The plan will see all wind farms off the coast linked up to one supply chain, making it easier and cheaper for developers to build offshore turbines.
Business leaders meeting at the influential North East Economic Forum’s energy seminar were told yesterday the European Commission was opening up the way for massive regional investment.
Derek Taylor, senior energy adviser at the commission, yesterday told The Journal the changes “may take time, but they will produce jobs in this region”.
He said: “The North Sea offshore grid is one of the six priority projects identified by the new strategy.
“The idea is to link the different sites in the sea and not just one farm producing energy for a small area. It ends the problem of it being so vulnerable to the changing wind, of too much or too little wind.
“You will get a near continuous supply and this will mean factories in southern Germany and Italy powered by wind from the North East coast.
“There will be a lot of infrastructure work needed but this will come and it opens up a lot of jobs possibilities.”
Euro MP Fiona Hall has already met with European Commissioners to discuss the impact of the new energy focus, and was confident the region had the EU’s full support.
She said: “What we got from that meeting was a commitment that this is definitely going to happen. The Commission is much more confident about this than some of its other energy schemes and we can safely say this not just wishful thinking.”
Ms Hall said her role was to ensure the Government “does not try and back out of renewable energy commitment” which could threaten thousands of potential jobs.
Newcastle Science City professor of energy Dermot Roddy said the North East was the UK’s best placed region to secure jobs and investment.
“Onshore wind was first developed in the UK but it was the Danish who capitalised on this and they now lead the world . This is our chance to take the lead on offshore wind turbines.
“We have so many of the essential requirements already here. We have industries that are experts at marinising machines to make them suitable for sea conditions, we have the world’s largest turbine testing facility at Blyth.
“At Newcastle University we still have the heavy engineering research facilities that other universities moved away from.
“The region has the manufacturing and skills base here and waiting, which puts us far ahead of other regions.
“We can look to, say, Norway as an area that will be going for similar growth, but we are certain to see a lot of the investment come this way.
“If the UK gets its act together it will see as many as 50,000 jobs created, and where would they go? Well it has been estimated that between 40% to 50% of them will head to us.”
The region has the manufacturing and skills base here and waiting, which puts us far ahead.
