17 November 2011
A recent study by Arup for the UK Government’s Department for Energy and Climate Change claimed that renewable sources of energy could be expanded to provide over a third of the UK’s energy capacity by 2030. Offshore wind was identified as having the greatest potential (at 41GW). There are various offshore wind projects currently in development involving huge investments. For example, RWE npower renewables was awarded the development rights for Bristol Channel Zone (Round 3 Zone 8) which is located in the outer Bristol Channel. The company is currently consulting on proposals to develop a £3bn wind farm by 2016 with up to 417 turbines and a generating capacity of up to 1500MW known as Atlantic Array. The annual generation expected at the site would be equivalent to the approximate domestic needs of around 1.1 million average UK households - equivalent to over 90% of the domestic electricity consumption for Wales. In North Wales the approved 576MW Gwynt Y Môr offshore wind project involves 160 turbines and an investment of £2bn. There is also huge potential linked to tidal energy and there are exciting initiatives such as the Energy Island approach in Anglesey. This scale of investment creates major operations, maintenance and supply chain opportunities and job creation potential for Wales but it is vitally important that there is awareness of these opportunities and that a proactive approach is taken to attract interest into Wales in the face of fierce competition from elsewhere.
Port locations are vitally important in this respect and WLGA commissioned a small scale research project to look at opportunities in relation to the ports of Holyhead, Port Talbot, Mostyn and Milford Haven. This builds on a report produced by DTZ for Welsh Government on the economic impact of low carbon energy on Welsh ports (see web link). The DTZ study forecast that the number of jobs supported by low carbon energy in Welsh ports will increase from the current figure of around 350 jobs to between 1,000 – 3,000 jobs by 2020. The majority of the impact to 2020 will be from the offshore wind and biomass sectors, which together are expected to account for 90%+ of the total employment impact across all low carbon sectors.
Profiles have been developed for WLGA for each of the four ports named above (copies attached). These give details of the port location, planned developments, an analysis of current port traffic, offshore renewable opportunities of potential relevance to the port, supply chain impacts and skills issues. The profiles have been developed with input from the port authorities and the relevant local authorities.
Ports are a non-devolved function but many important functions (such as planning, economic development and transport) that relate to ports activities are devolved.