Work together to protect wind industry

Author - Rachel Anderson

Date published:

The Chamber’s latest column for The Journal by Rachel Anderson, assistant director of policy.

Business and government often come at a problem from different directions. Something needs to be achieved, government may fund it or think it is a good idea, the private sector delivers the idea, and the relevant Minister takes the applause and is photographed in a high viz/with a nurse/staring wistfully into the distance/looking concerned/looking thrilled (delete as appropriate).

Sometimes though, coming at things from different directions leads to a head on crash.

Last week’s game of slow-motion chicken focused on our energy supply. Everyone agrees we need more energy security, everyone (well, almost everyone) agrees that security should come from clean, renewable sources and there’s a lot of hot air and even more wind to be found offshore. 

For months now, government and industry have been engaged in a who will blink first, high-octane, head-on amble over offshore wind licences. Effectively, the crown owns the seabed and if you want to deliberately put anything there you need a licence. Offshore wind turbines are good things to put there and in order to make it attractive to build something in a place with 40ft waves and force 12 winds there has to be a financial incentive called a FIT or Feed in Tariff where the government guarantees a price to encourage companies to do such a difficult and expensive thing. 

For months, the industry has been telling government that the FIT is too low and it is uneconomic to put the turbines up; the government has refused to believe them. Last week no-one blinked, no one bid and no turbines were planned. The failure to reach agreement is particularly worrying for our region. Not only do we need electricity, we also have a huge interest in the offshore wind industry. The supply chain is geared to contracts in the sector coming through; yes we are doing very well from Dogger Bank, but what then. This is a footloose industry which can go anywhere in the world and once lost, doesn’t return. We learned this with shipbuilding, electronics and bulk engineering. 

This feels like repeating the mistakes of the past. Compromise is needed and quickly, otherwise we lose more than just the lights.

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