Over the past 30 years, Aberdeen has been the epicentre of a spectacular period of industrial development, resulting in the city achieving the number-two position in the world for the supply of engineering and support services to the oil&gas sector.
Over that period, the supply chain based in Scotland’s north-east has developed and evolved to cope with all the lessons of working in a hostile marine environment. It has done so very successfully, with the region now leading the world in projects based on the greater use of subsea technology.
The region acts as a true hub for oil&gas activity in the eastern hemisphere, and it has done so on the back of what it has learned in the North Sea. What opportunities then for the city and that supply chain over the next 30 years in the new forms of renewable energy?
We have once again been dealt a mighty hand, and it is up to ourselves to take full advantage as the world moves power generation, in particular, into renewables.
Why is the world doing this – from Europe to the US, to India to China? The reasons are many.
Yes, such a move will play a vital part in cutting the carbon emissions created during energy production. Yes, whole new industries are being created and all nations are seeking a share of the economic development and jobs that will flow from it. But also, every country in the world is moving in the direction of renewables because it makes them more self-sufficient in energy terms and less vulnerable to the movement of major fuel resources from more volatile areas than ours.
Consider the Russia-Ukraine gas disputes of recent years that played such a major part in the European leadership resolving to make Europe more self-sufficient in energy terms, notably moving rapidly into renewables.
So Europe has legislated for a massive move into renewables and – by 2020 – 20% of all energy production in Europe (electricity plus heat plus transport) is to be renewables-based. Most of that change will be achieved through electricity generation, as this is the quickest to achieve. So by 2020 we expect to see 35% of electricity across the European community to be renewables-based.
But the Scottish Government is set to move even faster and, by that date, 2020, half of our electricity requirements, including every second light bulb, will be satisfied by renewables.
So what technologies will bring about this revolution?
Back to Aberdeen and that supply chain. Such changes are to be achieved principally using offshore windfarms for the first half of the period, with wave and tidal devices hopefully becoming large-scale in the second half.
All of these technologies require Aberdeen’s core of skills: engineering design; management of major projects; working in a hostile marine environment; operations and maintenance, and health and safety training.
The scale of the industrial opportunity is immense. It has been estimated that, by 2020, the so-called Round Three of offshore windfarms will involve the construction of 7,000 turbines in the North Sea and other UK waters. The capital investment is estimated to be in the region of £100billion. Add to this the plans for Germany, Belgium, Denmark and The Netherlands and that figure could well be more than doubled.
We have already seen some AREG members – such as SubOcean – winning significant amounts of work on offshore windfarms in UK and other waters. And the owners of the leases for Round Three sites will need the services of many more Aberdeen companies.
But that is not the only reason why this article refers to history repeating itself.
Even more significantly, the whole world is watching what is happening in the North Sea in terms of offshore wind – from China to Chile, from California to Australia. And just as with oil&gas, it will be the companies that learn their trade on offshore wind in the North Sea that will then go on to sell that experience around the globe as every country with a coastline seeks to develop offshore windfarms to supply electricity to its coastal cities.
Aberdeen must become a major player as the world moves into offshore wind.
The city has a further high and vital card to play in this unfolding scenario. Back in 2004, the Aberdeen Renewable Energy Group (AREG) started work on an offshore windfarm to provide green electricity to the city of Aberdeen. The project was to be in the order of 100MW, supplying perhaps two-thirds of the city’s domestic electricity needs. That, in itself, would have been an extremely worthwhile thing to do.
But in 2008, and recognising the emergence of the Round Three opportunities, AREG decided to develop its project jointly as both a power station and as a test centre for the turbines and techniques that would be needed for Round Three. We knew we were on the right track from the length of the queue of turbine manufacturers – from all over the world, including China – seeking places on our test site.
And the European Commission offered us 40million euros to help to build it.
By good fortune – or good planning – our timescale matched the needs of preparing for Round Three because our environmental study work had been carried out in the previous years.
As with any windfarm, there are a host of issues to resolve and stakeholders to consult. Finding the optimum turbine locations to suit the important needs of environmentalists, shipping and airport users has not been easy. But we are optimistic that such an optimum arrangement can be finally agreed, and we hope to apply to the Scottish Government for consent to build the project this autumn.
We refer to our project as the “stepping stone to Round Three”, and to Round Three as the stepping stone to the world market. Our project therefore places Aberdeen at the epicentre of offshore wind technology, with the rest of the world watching. Exciting times indeed.
For the second half of the 30-year period, it is widely expected that both wave and tidal technologies will reach maturity and start to make important contributions to our renewables targets. Yet again the skills of the Aberdeen community will be in hot demand and, yet again, the eyes of the world will be watching closely as Scotland builds on its enviable lead in these two important new technologies.
We have already seen the award of 10 site leases for wave and tidal projects in the Orkney and Pentland Firth area. And future opportunities are immense.
AREG members also feature in this agenda. At the All-Energy Conference and Exhibition this year, AREG will be launching its first Marine Brochure, setting out the important work that some of our member companies are carrying out in this area. These include:
Green Ocean Energy, whose wave device has been designed to be deployed on to offshore wind-turbine towers.
JP Kenny, which is managing the Wave Hub facility in Cornwall.
Neptune Deeptech, which construct parts of the Pelamis P1 and P2 wave machines.
Rotech, which has designed a leading tidal-stream machine.
Perhaps we will even see history repeating itself for a second time in terms of Aberdeen contributing to the wave and tidal industries?
We at AREG have great aspirations for the future. We will continue to communicate these aspirations and seek always to act as facilitator and catalyst for new projects or new networking between members of our community. If you wish to know more about that, please get in touch with us.
Iain Todd is with Aberdeen Renewable Energy Group
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