BP has hailed an “incredible response” to its initiative to drive Scottish company involvement in its ScotWind bid.
The energy giant said 450 companies have now registered to the portal to find and bid for work on offshore wind farms.
BP launched the ScotWind portal in March, in partnership with EnBW, as part of its bid for offshore leasing space in the huge auction being carried out by Crown Estate Scotland.
The pair have applied for a lease area off the east coast of Scotland which could support 2.9 gigawatts of offshore wind projects.
Laks Deol, BP’s ScotWind procurement manager, said: “In the eight months since we launched the Scottish supply chain portal the level of interest has been hugely encouraging with 450 Scottish companies registering to work with BP and EnBW on our potential ScotWind project.
“This is an incredible response and shows there is a significant appetite for renewables work in Scotland. We look forward to working with Scotland’s world-class supply chain, drawing on its decades of experience and capability in the oil and gas sector.”
Awards in the ScotWind leasing round are expected to be made in January, with the aim of developing a pipeline of projects of up to 10GW, doubling current capacity in the UK.
BP and EnBW turned heads earlier this year when their huge £900million bid in the UK Crown Estate’s Round 4, which won space in the Irish Sea, surpassing rivals with their spending power.
A cap on ScotWind bids was subsequently increased 10-fold, though the price limit has led to bidders instead focussing on industrial benefits.
In its 2021 manifesto, the Scottish National Party (SNP) estimated bids for ScotWind could raise up to £860million directly for the public purse.
For the supply chain more broadly, BP and EnBW identified £10billion of potential investments as part of their bid including development of electric vehicle charging and ports infrastructure.
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