BW Ideol has released a video setting out its vision for serial manufacturing at Ardersier to support the offshore wind industry, with up to 2,000 people onsite during peak production.
The firm, which signed a formal partnership with the port in 2021, plans to use the former McDermott oil and gas yard in the Highlands as its site for producing its “Damping Pool” floating wind foundations.
BW Ideol said in the video that, at peak production, one floater will be produced every week, mobilising up to 2,000 people onsite; the equivalent of around one gigawatt per year.
It comes hot on the heels of news last month that Ardersier Port had secured a £300m private equity investment from Quantum Energy Partners to help meet its offshore wind ambitions.
Lewis Gillies, CEO of the port’s parent firm Haventus, told Energy Voice that thousands of jobs would be supported in the construction phase, and hundreds once operational.
The video sets out the process from serial production of the foundations, to storage at the facility eight nautical miles from Ardersier (but still within the port’s jurisdiction).
BW Ideol started trading in 2021 as a joint venture between Ideol and BW Offshore to supply floating foundations to the industry.
Ardersier was once a major manufacturing site for the oil and gas industry in the 1970s and 80s, but shut up shop on its original facility in 2001.
Steve Regan, the former chief executive of civil engineering firm Careys, and his business partner Tony O’Sullivan acquired the port in 2021 for an undisclosed fee in hopes of shifting it into the renewables sector.
The moves come as the offshore wind industry in the UK ramps up for giant projects off Scotland’s shores, much of which in floating wind, to support a targeted 50GW of UK offshore wind by 2030
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