Scotland Gets Offshore Wind Super-Hub

A renewables jobs boom for the Highlands moved a step closer as the Port of Ardersier secured the full backing of the Scottish Government for plans to turn the former oil fabrication yard on the Moray Firth into a manufacturing ‘super-hub’ for offshore wind.

In what the port’s Chief Executive Officer Captain Steve Gobbi described as a ‘major milestone’, the 400 acre facility has been given the green light from the government and its regulators Marine Scotland and Transport Scotland.

The vacant site 15 miles east of Inverness now holds a marine licence and a harbour revision order, together with full planning consent from Highland Council secured earlier this year, paving the way for a potential jobs boom for the Highlands.

 Captain Gobbi said: “There are few, if any, vacant sites of this scale in the northern North Sea offering deep water access and the potential to undertake manufacturing, assembly, operations, maintenance and decommissioning from a single location. We now have the all-clear to commence site works and undertake major dredging which will see the port open for business next year.

This area of Scotland has a tremendous skills base with a strong heritage in oil, gas and marine operations. If the port can secure a slice of the estimated USD 133 billion UK offshore wind construction market, this will be a very positive story indeed.” 

The news follows the approval of USD 4.16 billion plans to build the Moray and Beatrice offshore wind farms in the outer Moray Firth, which together will be the world’s third largest offshore wind farm with up to 326 wind turbines.

The Beatrice scheme has been awarded an early ‘contract for difference’ investment contract from the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change – securing a guaranteed long-term feed-in tariff for the 664 MW project.