The future of the Scotland’s offshore wind industry is facing turbulent and strong headwinds unless both the Scottish and UK Government take seriously their responsibilities to the sector and its workers, says STUC leader and Herald columnist Roz Foyer.

Hollywood is gearing up for awards season but there’s a different type of award blowing through Scotland’s industrial landscape.

The latest Contracts for Difference awards are the latest in a series of concerning moves for Scotland’s offshore wind industry. Just one fixed offshore wind project in Scotland, SSE’s mammoth Berwick Bank, won in the UK Government’s competitive auction process.

Securing a Contract for Difference is a major step for developers. It provides them a fixed price for some or all the electricity they generate through a contract that can last for 15 years. Developers can move their projects forward knowing that even if electricity prices on the market are low, their income will be unchanged. Less risk, more predictability.

And as we all know from the last few years, predictability in the cost of energy is a rare thing.

Berwick Bank will connect to the grid from East Lothian. In the UK’s out of date system for electricity transmission (think pylons and substations), the cost of this connection depends on where you are in the UK. It’s more expensive in the north of Scotland and less expensive from the south of England. This may have made sense in the past, but with today’s drive for offshore wind it is clearly absurd.

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