Three excellent presentations at the recent Offshore Wind Supply Chain seminar at the Apex Hotel highlighted the current and future opportunities for local businesses to be part of the supply chain for the build and maintenance of massive offshore wind farms that are planned for the East coast of Scotland.
The first speaker, David Sweenie from windfarm developer Mainstream Renewable Energy, set out the projected timescales for the developments off the East coast of Scotland, which hopefully sees consents granted in 2013, the first turbines in the water in 2015 and the first phase completed by 2019. He made three key points to delegates:
Delivery of the Scottish Government's ambitious renewable energy targets.
Scottish opportunities within the supply chain.
The long-term export potential for developers and their supply chain partners.
Andrew Fox from turbine manufacturer Areva highlighted his firm's 'proven' technology and the currency benefits of having a UK supply chain. Amongst the points he mentioned was the importance of suppliers being able to demonstrate capability in the key areas of:
Safety.
Quality.
Delivery.
Cost.
On the latter point he stressed the importance of being able to demonstrate that you can deliver at a cost that the turbine manufacturers expect over the lifetime of the project.
Finally, Geoff Crowley from Highland Galvanizers and Colour Coaters described how Scottish Enterprise had helped his company identify business opportunities within the renewable energy sector. He urged delegates to ask themselves some challenging questions of themselves before pursuing orders in the sector, including:
What is your USP?
How you can validate the claims you make about your product?
Can you meet current and future industry standards?
He rounded of his presentation with two succinct messages: even the smallest SME can break into this market and starting with a small scale project is a great way to begin the process; and any organisation that doesn't take advantage of the support that is on offer from organisations like SE, local councils and the local chamber of commerce is just 'nuts'.
Copies of all the presentations can be downloaded here.
The seminar was organised by DACC, Dundee Renewables, Angus Council, Scottish Enterprise and East Coast Renewables, and is the first in a programme of events planned to inform local companies about emerging supply chain opportunities and offer guidance and advice on how to seize them and we want local firms to help design the programme by completing an online survey. Please take a few minutes to complete it so we can help you to succeed.
