From Calum Davidson, Director of Energy and Low Carbon, HIE
In 50 years of being Europe’s leading rural development agency, its fitting that HIE has been right at the cutting edge of a wide range of industries, indeed helping create whole new sectors. Back in the 60’s it was HIDB research and investment that created the regions fishing industry, especially in Shetland. In the 70’s it was Tourism, with purpose built hotels in remote island locations, and fish farming, where HIE R&D money and co-investment with some of the UK’s largest conglomerates that led to salmon farming now being such a mainstay of our rural economies. Business outsourcing, telecommuting, digital health, medical science, all areas where HIE has invested in R&D, in infrastructure and in pure old fashioned “vision” well ahead of the commercial curve, and sector where it can take 10-15 years to see real economic return.
But all areas where the H&I now see strong employment, strong business growth and well paid jobs.
I’m writing this blog in-between planes in Heathrow airport, where I flew down from Scotland just as the 2015 solar eclipse was covering the North of the UK. At 33,000 ft the dimming of the sun was quite obvious, and it was weird to see sunset reds and yellows in the middle of the day. Strangely enough the last time I saw a solar eclipse was outside the old HIE offices in the middle of Inverness almost 20 years ago, where we used the old pinhole camera trick to see the occluded sun on a piece of white card. The group I was with included a few colleagues who were talking about renewables, wind farms and wave machines, and the potential they held for the North, if only we could make sure that we could capture the long term knowledge through R&D, and testing, and manufacturing.
Well fast forward to 2015, and we see that 11 years of EMEC in Orkney means that we are now seeing the worlds first tidal stream array being build in Caithness, with huge supply chain wins for the region. Back in 2006 we saw the Beatrice deepwater windfarm demonstrator build out from an almost derelict Nigg. Ten years on we see SSE looking to use the refurbished ports of the Cromarty Firth to construct a huge offshore wind farm east of Wick.
So early investments pay off, whether its in aquaculture or renewable energy, with moving water growing strong fish, and creating electricity.
Yet we always need to looking to the next thing. Off-shore wind will almost certainly be a major part of global renewable energy production by 2050, but it won’t be from fixed towers sitting on the sea bed. The Eastern UK and the North sea countries are pretty unusual in having a flat shallow continental shelf to build windfarms on. Some parts of the world have deep deep water right next to their cities, and are looking to develop wind farms that float on platforms, or buoys that are anchored to the sea bed. Interestingly these look to be a fair bit cheaper as well, as it does away for the need for big expensive steel jackets.
For the Highlands floating wind is an attractive proposition. The seas to the north and west of Sutherland and the Hebrides have great wind resource, deep water and seabed that’s over the horizon and almost out of sight. We also have the Oil and gas experience in building specialist floating structures like spar bouys and tension leg platforms that the wind industry needs.
Ahh - but we also need to invest in R&D, and somewhere to test. Well that’s what our “next big thing” is in HIE. We are proposing a floating offshore wind test centre, in the seas North of Caithness and Sutherland, where companies from around the world can come and install their prototype devices, see how they work and prove their technologies. And some of the folk who are most interested in Scotland for floating wind are big Japanese companies, and that’s why I’m in Heathrow, just about to board a flight to Tokyo, as part of a Scottish Mission to Japan investigating opportunities in Floating Wind.
I’ll keep you posted.