Boost for renewables as SSE takes 15% stake in BiFab

In a deal that secures 400 jobs, SSE has bought a 15 per cent share of Burntisland Fabrications (BiFab) for 11m and placed an order for at least 50 "jackets" a year for offshore wind turbines. Jackets are the structures that the turbines stand on in the sea.

Scottish Enterprise is also lending 4m to the firm to help it build a 12,000 square metre production facility at Methil dockyard in Fife, with a further 2m coming from a Scottish Government regional selective assistance grant.

BiFab has grown its turnover from 20m to 90m in the past four years and expanded its workforce to about 950, after diversifying from building structures for the oil and gas industry into constructing jackets.

The Methil facility – which is expected to open towards the end of 2011 – will take production from 60 jackets a year to about 130.

Building jackets for wind farms planned under the round-three sea bed leasing – which was announced by the Crown Estate in January – is not expected to begin until 2014. SSE was one of the successful bidders for the offshore wind development rights.

BiFab managing director John Robertson told The Scotsman he was also seeing a pick-up in orders from the oil and gas industry, and he hoped that, along with jacket work for the round one and two wind farms and foreign orders, would keep his workforce at full strength until 2014.

He went on: "This new facility is about investing for the future and putting the infrastructure in place to meet demand. We will then be able to look at how many staff we need to take on as we get closer to 2014 and orders start coming in."

Robertson added that some of the components for the jackets would be built at BiFab's facility at Arnish Point, on Lewis, before being assembled in Fife.

But he said the long-term plan for the Western Isles site was still to develop a wave-power device.

SSE chief executive Ian Marchant said: "It is essential SSE is able to establish a reliable supply chain, particularly for those elements where manufacturing bottlenecks have already been identified as a significant risk.

He added: "This investment in BiFab secures a reliable supply of offshore structures for our SSE Renewables business, from a manufacturer with a proven record."

Commenting on the funding deal, Niall Stuart, chief executive of trade body Scottish Renewables, said: "This is yet further confirmation of the growing economic importance of Scotland's renewable energy sector, with huge growth forecast in every area over the next ten years.

"The demand for clean energy promises to revitalise parts of what we thought was our industrial heritage at the same time as creating highly paid and highly skilled jobs in rural economies across the country.

"We need more companies to follow BiFab's lead, and look at how they can capture a share of this fast-growing market."

Scottish Renewables thinks Scotland can capture about 30 per cent of the 100 billion being spent on round-three wind farms.