Green Revolution Promises More Success
31/01/2022 - posted in Civils, HBPW News, Industrial, Innovation, Marine, Value EngineeringHBPW stands poised to take further advantage of the emerging ‘green’ revolution now that
Crown Estate Scotland has auctioned the country’s seabed plots to multi nationals keen to build next generation windfarms.
Big oil multinationals including BP, Shell and renewable energy veterans Scottish Power and SSE, were recently given permission to lease the Scottish seabed where they plan to build enough windfarms to power the equivalent of 23m UK homes a year.
And that bodes well for HBPW which was an early entrant into the green energy revolution, gaining valuable team experience that can be put to good use over the next decade.
Managing Partner, Paul Withers, said: “From an engineering perspective this is all very exciting because we have been playing our part in the wind turbine revolution for some time.
“In Hull Siemens and development partner, Associated British Ports, invested £310m in offshore wind turbine production at Alexandra Dock, directly creating 1,000 new jobs and many more during the construction phase and in the supply chain.
“The project included the partial filling in of Alexandra Dock, constructing new lead-in jetties to the East and West sides of the facility and the construction of a new deep berth quay. Not only did we design some of the temporary works to aid development but, in carrying out a value engineering exercise, we also saved the client hundreds of thousands of pounds.
In this latest ‘sell off’, the bigger than expected auction, which awarded seabed permits to 17 windfarm projects from among more than 70 bidders, is expected to kickstart Scotland’s “biggest industrial investment programme” by laying the foundation for companies to develop 25GW of offshore wind capacity.
“We are told that the capacity of the new Scottish windfarms to be developed over the next 10 years will more than double the UK’s existing 10GW of offshore wind, and equal Europe’s current combined capacity,” added Paul.
“If the UK plans to quadruple its fleet of offshore windfarms to reach 40GW by the end of the decade – and that’s what the politicians and ‘green’ pundits are saying – then HBPW stands poised to win a slice of the £25bn investment, that looks set to flow from the next decade of activity.”