31st October 2024
Caledonia reaping the rewards from Ocean Winds’ strong supply chain in Moray Firth
Peter Haughie, Procurement & Contracts Associate Director – UK at Ocean Winds, takes a deep-dive into Ocean Winds’ recent report focused on driving ambitious supply chain transformation across Scotland and the UK, and discusses what this means for Caledonia Offshore Wind Farm.
Ocean Winds has grown a strong pipeline of offshore projects, with a portfolio of 6.1GW in Scotland, generating clean energy for millions of homes while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
It has invested significantly and nurtured industrial growth, capability and opportunity with local supply chains. As a result, projects like Caledonia are in a prime position to embrace next-generation technologies and world-leading supply chains, and benefit from Ocean Winds’ proven experience, knowledge and innovation.
Our recent report – Driving Ambitious Supply Chain Transformation Across Scotland and UK – uncovers the economic, social and environmental impacts of our high-profile offshore wind developments in the Moray Firth – an area we consider our home in the UK.
The impact of Ocean Winds’ investment in the Moray Firth
Completed in 2022, Moray East (950MW) was Scotland’s first operational commercial offshore wind farm, leading the world in offshore wind cost reduction and supplying enough electricity to meet the needs of 1.43 million homes.
We are nearly complete the turbine installation on Moray West (882MW), our second major development in the Moray Firth which recently achieved first power. On completion, the development will generate power for up to 1.33 million homes, at a time when the UK urgently needs more capacity to maintain a secure, affordable supply of home-grown power.
Next, our sights are firmly set on plans for the 2GW Caledonia, which will nearly double the Moray Firth’s ability to supply local low-cost, low-carbon electricity.
Independent analysis by BVG Associates in our report provided an accurate picture of the socio-economic benefits of our Moray Firth projects to date. For example, Moray West has created over 2,800 fulltime employment (FTE) years during construction, with over 60 long term operational roles in Buckie. Moray West will directly contribute £800 million of expenditure within the Scottish economy over its lifetime.
Over the past decade, a major focus has been on unlocking the competitiveness of the supply chain through commercial innovation. In all, we have numerous priorities for transforming the supply chain, including:
- Creating local, long-term, skilled jobs
- Supply chain investment opportunities in the vicinities of our offshore operations
- Supporting transferable skills for a just transition from oil and gas into renewable energy
- Directly awarded major contracts to 64 Scottish companies, with many more awarded indirectly in our supply chains
- Collaborating with industry bodies to share knowledge and learnings.
Bringing Caledonia to life
Caledonia will mark two decades of continuous investment by Ocean Winds in the Moray Firth, providing even more opportunities for local growth. Its delivery is already benefiting from the data, knowledge and expertise gained over the past 20 years, firmly positioning it as one of the few ScotWind projects that are planned to be operational by 2030.
As we move forward with our plans, we aim to further capitalise on the lessons learnt, cost reductions achieved and technology proven during our other Moray Firth projects and reap the rewards.
We have already committed £46 million of supply chain enabling investment via Caledonia, which will be used to build on the critical, competitive competencies and necessary skills needed to bring this significant project to life.
There’s no denying that navigating the complex planning process and political landscape, while engaging with the supply chain along the journey, can be challenging.
As an example, a typical cycle for a project of Caledonia’s scale – from planning to lease agreement to build – can be over a decade. This can lead to difficulty in confidently forecasting resources and deliverables – but it’s where our positive existing relationships with the supply chain and local communities comes into play.
The £46 million of enabling investment the project has allocated is extremely vital to ensure the supply chain is ready and confident to participate in Caledonia before the construction phase begins. This same sentiment extends to the various infrastructure required to deliver offshore wind.
To enable long-term operations and maintenance (O&M) for Moray East and Moray West, an O&M base has been built in Buckie, with 98% of staff recruited from the local area, as well as a base located at Fraserburgh.
Empowering the workforce
Of course, people are at the heart of our ambition for Caledonia.
We have made sure that local supply chains have had excellent visibility of procurement opportunities on Ocean Winds projects. This has been achieved by leading the creation of the DeepWind offshore wind cluster organisation, in partnership with Highlands and Islands Enterprise.
DeepWind has a membership base of close to 1,000 companies, including all offshore wind developers in Scotland. DeepWind and Ocean Winds have worked together to provide sector information to audiences across Scotland, including hosting six meet the buyer events for the primary packages in the Moray West and East offshore wind projects.
As part of our Skills Development Strategy, we already have agreements in place with several education sector organisations, including Scottish Schools Education Research Centre (SSERC) and the Wood Foundation for STEM programmes; the Energy Skills Partnership for Scottish college support; and several Scottish universities.
Last year, through our partnership with SSERC, Ocean Winds engaged with 97 schools, ran activities for over 8,200 young people and our STEM Ambassadors logged 380 volunteer hours. Caledonia funding allowed SSERC to develop the SCQF Level 7 Young STEM Leader Award, recruiting over 250 young people from 20 schools for the pilot programme in the last school year. This course has been rolled out nationally this academic year.
We’re also working closely with the National Energy Skills Accelerator, which responds rapidly to the up-, re- and new-skilling of the existing and future workforce needed for the energy transition.
By sustaining the strong relationships we’ve built with education providers during other projects on the Moray Firth, we are in an excellent position to maximise on the raft of training programmes that will prepare the next generation of skilled workers for Caledonia.
Our unwavering ability to develop the supply chain and strengthen our relationships with like-minded organisations on a local, national and international scale, while developing people and skills, is the key to Caledonia’s success.
Ocean Winds’ report – Driving Ambitious Supply Chain Transformation Across Scotland and UK – is available to read in full here.