We must ensure we all reap offshore energy rewards
THE deadline has passed and the Scotwind licensing round applications are in. But, important though that staging post is, it is the next step in the process that is the crucial one for the future of Scotland’s energy sector and for the wider prosperity of the country.
Renewable energy is an absolutely essential component of global plans to tackle climate change and invest in sustainability. It is a central pillar of the future planning of international corporations and of the governments of the EU, the UK and Scotland, impinging on almost every other aspect of policy.
And it is an area in which Scotland has outstanding natural resources – to the extent that yesterday SSE, the Perth-based company that is the UK and Ireland’s biggest generator of renewable energy, was able to announce that its standard electricity contract for business customers would be entirely drawn from renewables.
Yet, as was the case with oil before these greener, cleaner generators of power, Scotland’s substantial natural advantages have not always translated into a lasting benefit for the country. The previous booms in both onshore and the first generation of offshore wind power could have created – as many expected it would – significant and long-term benefits in Scottish manufacturing and technology.
Instead, the technology, and much of the work and expertise in its construction and maintenance, was largely imported and, once in place, the benefits from these natural resources have been accrued by large power companies and their shareholders.
Although much of the initial funding came directly from UK taxpayers in the form of subsidies, it did not lead to a manufacturing base that might have created thousands of local jobs and built a world-leading industry in a sector crucial to the plans of almost all major countries and corporations, as well as the sustainability and stability of the environment and economy.
Nor were the resulting benefits harnessed – in the manner of Norway’s oil fund, or Iceland’s use of