Green Energy Conference: West of Orkney Windfarm backs region's ambitions

Mike Hay, deputy project director at West of Orkney Windfarm

As an Inverness native, it was great to come back to my home town and see such a breadth of interest in the green energy revolution.

In our session – ably chaired by Elain Macrae, head of energy strategy at Highlands and Islands Enterprise – we heard from Trudy Morris, chief executive of the Caithness Chamber of Commerce, who detailed the many measures it is undertaking to maximise opportunities.

We fully support the chamber’s ambition, and will shortly commence a series of local supply chain events to continue our dialogue with businesses in Caithness, Sutherland and Orkney to explore how we can work collaboratively to increase capacity to meet the new opportunities offshore wind will bring.

We also heard from James Buck, head of marine service and transportation, and harbour master at Orkney Islands Council Harbour Authority, and Iain Sinclair, executive director of Global Energy Group.

Each outlined their exciting visions to develop Scapa Deep Water Quay and the facilities at Nigg – both key pieces of infrastructure which will allow the region to become a significant player in the fabrication and rollout of fixed and floating offshore wind farms.

The West of Orkney Windfarm stands full square behind these ambitions and has already committed £105 million of investment during the initial phase of the project to develop the supply chain, that will be enhanced to at least £140m by match funding from third parties.

This investment initiative will be delivered ahead of any final decision to start construction on the project, and it will be entirely focused on the West of Orkney Windfarm.

Already, we have dedicated some of this investment towards a £900,000 collaborative initiative, supported by other ScotWind developers, to fund ten STEM co-ordinators who will work with primary schools across the region to help make the core subjects of science, technology, engineering and maths an exciting and integral part of the school curriculum.

It was therefore particularly heartening to welcome Alison Wilson, director of advancement and alumni engagement at University of the Highlands and Islands, to our panel.

She spoke with passion on the capacity for education in these core subjects to help retain and attract people to live and work in the area.

And to round off what was a terrific day, we were then able to meet in person the ten new STEM coordinators and hear first-hand their enthusiasm for renewable energy and the potential it brings to transform for the better the communities in which they live.