Stephen Bull, Senior Vice President for Wind & Low Carbon Solutions in Equinor and Chair of RenewableUK, gives his reflections on the Sector Deal, and how the offshore wind industry can begin to implement it.
The announcement of a Sector Deal with the UK government, covering Britain’s offshore wind industry, is a major milestone in what is an incredible success story for the UK’s renewable energy sector.
With around 12,000 kilometres of coast in the heart of the windy North Sea, the UK is already the world leader in offshore wind. It has more capacity than any other country (7.9 gigawatts), the biggest offshore wind farm, the world’s first floating offshore windfarm (Hywind Scotland by Equinor) and the most powerful turbines (a moving target, but all turbine manufacturers prioritise the UK market first).
Offshore wind is part of a wider of a broader decarbonisation agenda in the UK, with renewables providing 30% of the UK’s electricity today. In fact, no other industrialised nation has been so successful in decarbonisation, whilst still growing the economy. Now 10 years in, the UK was the first country to implement legally binding commitment to GHG reductions (Climate Change Act). Britain is almost completely coal free in power production, despite being the home of the coal-fired industrial revolution and is a case in point that politics and policy work if the world is serious about tackling global warming.
A new low-carbon revolution is firmly in place, with green collar jobs providing strong opportunities in the future. The Offshore Wind Sector Deal will become a key driver in an energy transformation which will have broader economic and societal benefits. It will place offshore wind at the centre of the nation’s clean, affordable and reliable energy system, aiming for 30 gigawatts by 2030, generating one-third of the UK’s electricity.
The Sector Deal will see the industry investing up to £250m to develop the UK supply chain, increasing productivity and fostering innovation. This includes an investment of up to £100m in a new industry programme, the Offshore Wind Growth Partnership, which will help UK companies seeking to grow their business in the rapidly-growing global offshore wind market, as well as a new initiative to develop skills for the sector (with a global market forecast of around +150 gigawatts by 2030).
The industry will target a five-fold increase in exports (we already export to 20 countries in the offshore wind sector); create a 27,000 offshore wind workforce (triple today’s level); drive inclusiveness and diversity in the industry (targeting at least 33% women employees by 2030, and by recruiting people from a wider variety of ethnic backgrounds); and maintain the UK as an offshore wind innovation hub for AI, robotics and digital solutions.
The UK government alongside the deal will provide over £4 million for British business to share expertise globally and open new markets for UK industry through a technical assistance programme to help countries like Indonesia, Vietnam, Pakistan and the Philippines skip dirty coal power and develop their own offshore wind projects. It will also drive even further the UK’s world-leadership in floating offshore wind and seek export opportunities in the new deep-water markets of Japan, South Korea, California, Taiwan and Europe.
Getting to where we are today in the Sector Deal has been a labour of love for the industry and, as the champagne corks pop around the industry, the implementation work starts – namely, how do we operationalise the Sector Deal?
Here the central coordinating role will be held by RenewableUK, the UK’s leading renewables industry association. The job here is to deliver on the promises and trust built between the government and industry. RenewableUK has been at the heart of this work, together with the Offshore Wind Industry Council and the ORE Catapult. Without industry associations like RenewableUK providing intelligence, facts, solutions and context to politicians, policy-makers, the media and the public we would not be where we are today, namely at the edge of a green economic paradigm for Britain.
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