Crown Estate’s Round 3 offers new offshore wind opportunities for Associated British Ports
Today’s announcement by the Crown Estate naming the consortia who will develop offshore windfarms for renewable electricity generation from nine locations within the coastal ring road around Britain is welcomed by Britain’s biggest ports group Associated British Ports (ABP).
The unprecedented scale of the Round 3 offshore wind developments will require the establishment of port facilities close to the offshore zones. The selected ports will play a critical role in the construction and deployment of the turbines and as ongoing bases for operations and maintenance activities.
ABP’s ports are ideally located to support the majority of the consortia named today. Discussions are currently taking place with several industry players that could see ABP’s ports form important maritime clusters servicing the offshore wind industry.
Patrick Walters, ABP’s Commercial Director, said:
“Several of ABP’s ports are in a prime position to serve some of the biggest proposed developments especially in the North Sea, Bristol Channel and in the Irish Sea. Now that the Crown Estate has announced the Round 3 winners we will be stepping up our discussions with the wide range of businesses wanting to establish operations at our ports.”
ABP has already developed specialist port expertise through its involvement in a number of Round 1 and Round 2 offshore wind projects. ABP’s ports at Barrow, Grimsby and Lowestoft provide assembly sites and Operations and Maintenance bases for leading companies such as Centrica, Siemens, Airtricity, DONG and Vestas.
“It makes sense for the offshore wind industry to take advantage of ABP’s existing port infrastructure, particularly as we are so close to the offshore zones,” said Mr Walters.
The UK’s offshore wind industry could be worth £75 billion and support up to 70,000 jobs by 2020. Round 3 offshore wind energy generation aims to deliver 32gw, a quarter of the UK’s total electricity needs, by 2020.
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