As SSE commits to invest £15million in the UK’s largest turbine tower manufacturing facility in the Scottish Highlands we find out more about Nigg Offshore Wind (NOW).
Alistair Phillips-Davies, chief executive at SSE plc, is excited about the project and explained that it would bring a significant number of jobs to Scotland: “It’s difficult to overstate the importance of this announcement. Once operational in 2023, NOW will employ 400 people on a full-time direct basis manufacturing up to 135 towers each year for the next generation of fixed and floating offshore wind turbines.
“Its activities will support another 1,800 indirect jobs in the Scottish and UK supply chain – helping transform thousands of lives in the region and providing real opportunities for workers to transition from oil and gas to renewables. For us, this is an integral part of the Just Transition.”
Here are nine things you need to know about the new Nigg Offshore Wind facility:
- Nigg Offshore Wind (NOW) will be a giant, 450-metre-long, 38,000 metre-square factory, capable of rolling steel plate to supply turbine towers in excess of 1,000 tonnes each.
- This new state-of-the-art offshore wind turbine tower factory will be located at the Port of Nigg in the Highlands.
- The project is backed by £15 million in debt funding from SSE Renewables to make it happen.
- Nigg Offshore Wind, or NOW as it is known, is the most significant localisation of offshore wind supply chain manufacturing ever seen in Scotland and the UK.
- It will be built at an investment cost of over £110 million.
- NOW will be responsible for producing components out of the Scottish Highlands for projects in the UK and abroad, and ready to compete in a global marketplace.
- Once operational in 2023, NOW will employ 400 people on a full-time direct basis will support a further 1,800 indirect jobs in the Scottish and UK supply chain.
- It will manufacture up to 135 towers each year for the next generation of fixed and floating offshore wind turbines.
- SSE’s substantial, multi-million-pound backing for this tower manufacturing plant makes the organisation the largest single UK backer behind these exciting plans in the Scottish Highlands.
Mr Phillips-Davies, SSE’s CEO, added: “I’m incredibly proud of the central role which SSE has played in securing this development. And it shows that at SSE, we’re willing to put our money where our mouth is to support the development of a competitive Scottish manufacturing supply chain and create local jobs.
The announcement of a new world-class offshore wind manufacturing factory, producing turbine towers out of the Scottish Highlands for a global marketplace, shows what can be achieved when government and businesses work together.”
Nicola Sturgeon MSP, First Minister of Scotland, said: “SSE’s contribution is commendable and exemplary. SSE Renewables is showing real responsibility and real commitment to the Scottish economy by making sure it supports developments like this.
“This is key to ensuring we are capturing all of the economic and supply chain benefits of our massive offshore wind resources and helping to make the transition from fossil fuels to renewables a just one. So, I have real admiration for, but also appreciation of, the massive contribution that SSE is making to this development.”
To discover more about SSE’s commitment to power change, visit the website: www.sserenewables.com
