ScottishPower boss in call to create a ‘head of ScotWind’

The CEO of ScottishPower has called for the creation of a “head of ScotWind” to oversee the multibillion-pound development process.

Speaking at All-Energy in Glasgow, Keith Anderson said the industry needs “to have an identifiable head” of the programme.

Awards for the offshore leasing round in January set out a pipeline of plans to develop a massive 25 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind capacity in Scottish waters via 17 sites, with billions of pounds to be invested.

ScottishPower is teaming up with Shell on three ScotWind projects: two floating wind developments off the east coast, and a fixed foundation project off the west.

Mr Anderson insisted: “I think we need to have an identifiable head of the ScotWind programme.

“A person who is there and whose sole objective in life is to deliver 25GW of offshore wind for this country, working right across government, the supply chain, academia, looking at the innovation sector and delivering 25GW.

“It’s that focus that we need, that concentration of effort and shared objective we need to make this a huge success.”

Mr Anderson was joined on the panel by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who set out the prize of more than £25 billion which could be spent on ScotWind projects.

However, with issues around supply chain capacity, she acknowledged “it won’t happen by magic” and a huge amount of work is needed to tackle the opportunity.

Yesterday the Scottish Offshore Wind Energy Council (SOWEC) published a charter, signed by 24 developers, including all of the successful ScotWind bidders, to collaborate to create supply chain work within Scotland.

Ms Sturgeon said: “If our ports and harbours are confident enough to invest in new facilities for manufacturing and assembly, and also for longer-term operations and maintenance, that, in turn, will help the whole of the Scottish supply chain.”

Keith Anderson.