Global Energy Group, the Scottish headquartered energy services company, has agreed terms with offshore wind tower manufacturing specialist, Haizea Wind Group, to build a £110m state-of-the-art offshore wind tubular rolling facility at Port of Nigg, in the Scottish Highlands.
Nigg Offshore Wind (NOW) will be a giant, 450 metre, 38,000m2 factory, capable of rolling steel plate to supply towers which will weigh in excess of 1,000 tonnes each and other products, to the booming UK offshore fixed and floating wind industry in the UK and abroad.
Subject to successfully achieving financial close, the NOW factory will receive substantial financial backing totalling £15m in debt from SSE Renewables making the renewable energy leader the largest single UK-based strategic backer behind the NOW plans, along with senior debt being provided (subject to due diligence and approvals) by Sequoia Economic Infrastructure Income Fund.
The factory is expected to receive funding support from the Scottish government via Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) and the UK government via the offshore wind manufacturing investment support scheme (OWMIS).
The facility has been designed to supply towers and other large tubular components suitable for both the fixed and floating offshore wind markets. While the initial contracts for tower supply will focus on UK domestic supply, it is anticipated that the factory will be in high demand for export of towers and other products due to the rapid rate of planned offshore wind deployment across Europe up until 2050.
The UK government has committed to 40GW of installed offshore capacity by 2030, bringing overall UK wind capacity to over 50GW. At the current size of turbine used in the market, that means the UK needs more than 3,000 towers to reach this ambitious target. The UK currently does not have a factory capable of producing towers to the specification required for future planned projects by leading fixed and floating developers.