Offshore Wind – from England to the East

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Abstract:
This paper will outline how the East of England region of 5.5M people, delivering 10% of the UK’s economy, is becoming the centre of the global offshore wind industry. In the next 10 years the region’s coastline will see £10 billion invested in delivering around 6 GW of electricity.
+ F. @' z  h0 o/ D5 ORenewables East (RE), the renewable energy agency for the East of England, has been working to drive forward offshore wind, whilst seeking to maximise regional economic benefit from the development. RE, together with national, regional and local government organisations is working with the supply chain to the industry enabling an effective programme of activities to bring forward cost reductions and more effective risk
. n9 _3 J# V. }- k1 Wmanagement in offshore wind, contributing to the growth in offshore wind, globally.
Innovation and technology commercialisation are key issues being addressed in the East of England to drive forward the industry and 50 years’ experience from North Sea Oil and Gas is a key to realizing cost reductions. Most notably through the OrbisEnergy development, a £6.4million capital build project.
7 B4 O8 I! C4 M! B1 ]/ a9 E* WThe East of England appreciates the global opportunity to lead the industry and working with Global partners (in particular Germany and Denmark) it is keen to ensure that lessons learnt are transferred to developing markets such as China.
Key Words:
“Offshore Wind”, “Scroby Sands”, “OrbisEnergy”, “Supply Chain opportunities”, “knowledge and technology transfer”.
Introduction
" l0 U$ q9 N( b+ l. |Today, renewable energy is the way forward for clean energy technologies, and Europe is a world leader with European companies dominating the global market. The UK Government has outlined its objective to generate 10% of the UK’s electricity from renewable sources by 2010 [1]; this figure was supplemented with a target to reach 15% by 2015 and is likely to be enhanced with a target of 20% by 2020. The East of England’s regional targets in its draft Regional Spatial Strategy, the East of England plan, envisage the region achieving 14% of its electricity consumption from renewables by 2010, with 4% coming from offshore wind energy, rising to 44% by 2020, with 17% coming from offshore wind energy.
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