Enterprise agency ‘can connect Caithness firms with major renewable developers’
Highlands and Islands Enterprise can act as a “bridge” to link major renewable energy developers with Caithness firms, the agency’s chief executive has said.
Stuart Black was speaking after HIE hosted a board engagement event in Mackays Hotel, Wick, looking at economic prospects over the next five years with business and community development representatives from across Caithness and Sutherland.
Mr Black highlighted the existing 84-turbine Beatrice offshore wind farm, which has its operations and maintenance base at Wick harbour, and West of Orkney Windfarm, which will consist of up to 125 turbines off the north coast, with its base likely to be Scrabster.
Mr Black said: “We know there’s a lot of offshore wind opportunities around the coast here, so how do we get the small businesses, the engineering businesses, to be connected into that? How do we get them to collaborate and then go to the bigger developers and say ‘here’s what we can offer’?
“That is part of our role, to be that bridge between the major developers and the local businesses. And the developers do want to have local supply chains – they talk about it all the time. That’s a way we can definitely help.
“Caithness has got some really strong engineering companies that have worked in technology for decades with Dounreay and oil and gas, and those skills are really transferable into renewables.”
Eann Sinclair, HIE area manager for Caithness and Sutherland, pointed out: “We’ve got all these resources geographically proximate to us but we’ve got all these people. It has slightly changed, in that Dounreay is going to be here for a very long time to come.
“That’s a whole generation, probably two generations of workforces that are potentially going to be able to focus on a life in the north of Scotland if they choose to.”
Mr Black added: “I’m pretty sure West of Orkney Windfarm is going to use Scrabster as its supply base, so you’ll have Beatrice out of Wick and West of Orkney out of Scrabster – and there are other wind farms around the north coast as well.”
