Scottish offshore wind industry signs up to Collaborative Framework Charter to support supply chain growth

Today the First Minister Nicola Sturgeon MSP announced the new signatories of the SOWEC Collaborative Framework Charter. The announcement was made as part of the First Minister’s speech at the All Energy Conference and Exhibition in Glasgow.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon MSP said: “Wind power is already the cheapest form of power in our electricity mix – it is certainly, for example, cheaper than nuclear power.”

24 organisations, representing almost 25GW of ScotWind projects with an estimated value of £1.5bn per GW have agreed to work together in the development and delivery of this Collaborative Framework. These and other signatories are also responsible for a further 6.7GW of other Scottish projects either in construction or under development.

Work on this Collaborative Framework is being coordinated by the Scottish Offshore Wind Energy Council (SOWEC), a partnership between Scottish Government and agencies and the offshore wind industry. Industry participants have signed up to an associated Charter, agreeing to support SOWEC’s work.

SOWEC industry co-chair Brian McFarlane said, “SOWEC’s Collaborative Framework is a practical way for developers and Scottish ports to work together, to help build a long-term pipeline of work, creating certainty that ports need to prioritise investment in higher value activities like fabrication.”

To capitalise on the opportunity of ScotWind, investment is needed in Scottish ports. 2021’s Strategic Investment Assessment, led by Professor Sir Jim McDonald, set out a series of recommendations for how Government and industry needed to work together to secure this investment.

These recommendations have been accepted by SOWEC, and include a recommendation that developers work together through a Collaborative Framework to engage Scottish ports, with an initial focus being fabrication and manufacture for floating platforms and foundations.

SOWEC began work on the Collaborative Framework in autumn 2021, with developer members agreeing a set of principles to guide action. These principles have been reviewed and agreed by ScotWind lease winners and existing developers. 

Alongside this work, the Scottish Government, enterprise agencies and SOWEC have been engaging Scottish ports to look at how best to involve ports in collaborative discussions with developers.

The 24 developers signing up to this Charter will now work jointly together to review the pipeline of Scottish offshore wind projects and identify ways they can work together to maximise how they work with Scottish ports to share capacity and space and also help underpin new investment.  

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