Brian Wilson: Scotland set to miss out on renewable revolution – again. Failure to turn vast sums of UK consumer susbsidies for onshore windfarms into a substantial Scottish industry was a disaster over the past decade or so. Now something worse is happening. In spite of many years’ notice, the same thing is happening with offshore wind, which had even greater potential due to the huge scale of the projects. The Moray Firth East windfarm’s French owners have delegated procurement to the Belgian firm, GeoSea, which awarded half the main contract to a state-dependent outfit in the UAE and look set to give the rest to another Belgian partner, Smulders. BiFab in Fife are still fighting for crumbs from a £2.6 billion project. The Arnish yard in Lewis – which benefited from public investment long ago – will reopen with 60 jobs which serves to confirm the scale of what is being missed out on elsewhere. BiFab was taken over last year by the Candian firm, DF Barnes, who were assured of Scottish Government support to win offshore wind orders for Methil and Burntisland. They are now frustrated and disappointed by the failure to deliver.
Scotsman 2nd March 2019 read more »
Suffolk councils say they remain ‘deeply concerned’ about the impact of proposed wind farm schemes off its coast, and the ‘lack of co-ordination’ with other planned energy projects. Speaking in response to ScottishPower Renewables wind farm plans, Suffolk County Council and Suffolk Coastal District Council said they continued to support the principle of offshore wind to reduce carbon emissions and provide significant economic benefits in the county and the UK, but said that this “should not be achieved at any cost to Suffolk”.
East Anglian Daily Times 1st March 2019 read more »
