England and Scotland Compete for $52 Billion Offshore Wind Future

England and Scotland are competing to create a hub for the country’s US$52 billion offshore wind industry. They are contending for a $237 million investment from Spanish wind-turbine maker, Gamesa Corp. Tecnologica SA. The local governments are planning foundations for sill concentration and investment servicing North Sea wind parks, resembling how Aberdeen renovated its economy with the oil industry.

Energy experts believe that the United Kingdom should be the world’s dominant offshore wind power by 2020, and that ports who secure this investment will be substantial economic growth. Gamesa may also create as many as 1,200 jobs at a time when Britain’s unemployment rate is at its highest in 16 years.

Although the U.K. possesses the skills from offshore drilling, there is a debate about Scotland’s constitutional future and whether its economy can afford to do it alone. Plans are underway to call a referendum on independence in 2014, the year Gamesa aims to produce turbines at its new British plant.

According to the Financial Post, Gamesa, Europe’s third-biggest wind-turbine maker, plans to establish the factory, maintenance center and logistics operations in Britain as the nation ramps up wind-power production to 31,000 megawatts by 2020. More than half of that capacity, or 18,000 megawatts, is to come from offshore wind, up from about 1,500 megawatts now.

Onshore and offshore wind farms in the seas around Scotland have the ability to provide up to 25 percent of Europe’s tidal power and 10 percent of its wave power. Billions have been invested in offshore wind sector in Britain since April, according to energy officials, after inaugurating the world’s biggest offshore wind farm, which is in the Irish Sea off Britain’s west coast.