A new group has been set up to make sure Scotland’s energy supply chain companies benefit from new floating offshore wind projects in Scotland and the UK.
It has been formed as a subgroup of DeepWind, Scotland’s supply chain cluster, which is currently managed by Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) to help cement the country’s leadership role in the development of offshore wind.
The new subgroup will be co-chaired by Andronikos Kafas from Ocean Winds and Julia Roope from Fugro and involves more than 200 members of the DeepWind cluster.
Scotland is currently considered the world leader in the deployment of floating offshore wind with the Hywind project and the soon to be completed Kincardine wind farm.
The combined capacity of these projects, at 80MW, puts Scotland at the top of the floating offshore wind league and, with plans to scale up to commercial projects in the forthcoming ScotWind leasing round.
The aim of the new subgroup is to develop close ties with centres of innovation, such as the Floating Offshore Wind Centre of Excellence and the Carbon Trust’s Floating Offshore Wind Joint Industry Project.