There is a “whole piece of work to be done” to increase the number of UK supply chain companies involved offshore renewable projects.
That’s according to Morag McCorkindale, chief operating officer of the Aberdeen Renewable Energy Group (AREG), speaking at the Future of Energy Conference at Aberdeen University.
Her comments come following a major report last week from the UK government – Future of the Sea – which stated that a lack of UK content in offshore wind projects could be a “missed opportunity”.
Ms McCorkindale said: “I would say we are not making sufficient use of the supply chain for offshore energy in the UK.
“The companies are there, they are bidding and getting work. Some companies are doing well, some are still on a journey and some are trying to get in.
“We have to recognise that when we look at the first tier contractors, some of them are European. Our first tier contractors like Subsea 7 are competing with European companies, so some of them will be European rather than UK based.
“There’s a whole piece of work to be done there. Local content is going up but there’s a whole piece of work to be done.
“I don’t think that companies can do it entirely on their own, that’s why groups like AREG are there.
“Once you have a track-record – you’ll notice that the majority of UK companies that are involved in offshore wind have got repeat contracts. It’s about getting that first contract, to get in the door and show what you can do is the difficult thing.
“The future is bigger windfarms, in deeper water at a lower price with more UK content. The next step from that is global and how to do this in a large scale, as there are countries desperate for power in a way that we can’t appreciate that we can help them with.”
The words were echoed by Rebecca Williams, policy manager with Renewable UK.
She said: “Getting the companies known, and getting them introduced to the developers at an early stage, is absolutely key.”
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