Windfarm puts hundreds of new jobs on the horizon

Published on Saturday 9 January 2010 10:21

HUNDREDS of jobs could be created at Leith or Rosyth as part of a £7 billion investment in a windfarm off the East Lothian coast.

Up to 600 wind turbines will be built in the outer Firth of Forth starting in 2015.

Ian Marchant, chief executive of Scottish & Southern Energy, which is part of the consortium awarded rights to develop the windfarm, said it would mean thousands of jobs during construction and hundreds of permanent posts to operate and service the turbines.

He said the windfarm, 12 miles off the East Lothian coast, had the potential to deliver 3.4GW of electricity, effectively almost doubling Scotland's entire existing renewables capacity.

Construction is not expected to start until 2015 because of the detailed consent which needs to be obtained and the decisions to be made on the precise number of turbines and where to put them.

The project will be developed by Seagreen Wind Energy, a consortium made up of SSE Renewables and Fluor.

Initially, up to 300 people will be employed in Glasgow on the design and preparation work for the Firth of Forth windfarm and other projects.

Mr Marchant said thousands of jobs would be created during the construction phase, which is expected to take about five years.

Then there would be up to 700 permanent jobs based on the east coast, operating the windfarm and servicing the turbines.

Mr Marchant said: "We have good relations with Forth Ports. We will be talking to them about Leith, Dundee, Grangemouth and Roysth. We will pick one and we will create a supply base and these people will be based there."

The new base will require ship and helicopter access.

First Minister Alex Salmond hailed the windfarm announcement as hugely important for Scotland because it highlighted the massive potential for offshore energy.

He said around 1,000 people in Scotland were currently employed in offshore marine energy, but that could increase to 20,000 over the next ten years.

But he attacked the current regime of charges which power companies must pay to connect to the electricity grid. Mr Salmond said: "We must end the discrimination which has Scottish producers paying higher connection charges than producers south of the Border."

Mr Marchant warned the current charging regime was inhibiting renewable energy development in Scotland.

He said if proposals to make the system even more discriminatory went ahead, his company would consider legal action.

He said: "We do not object to paying our fair share of transmission charges, but we are paying more than our fair share."

He said the current system was based on the idea that energy should be generated wherever the demand was.

"We have always believed you build generation where it makes sense to do that."