Dundee’s council leader said there is still much to play for in the quest to bring the renewable energy industry to the city.
SNP administration leader Ken Guild is seeking an urgent meeting with Scottish and Southern Energy to clarify the company’s intentions following their retreat from wind, wave and biomass power projects.
The council has little control over strategic decisions taken by multinational companies, but Mr Guild stressed he will not give up on efforts to promote the suitability of the harbour for renewable energy developments.
Three years ago Mr Guild, on the council’s behalf, signed a memorandum of understanding with harbour owners Forth Ports and SSE to pursue the company’s interest in attracting renewables manufacturing investment to the industrial waterfront.
The declaration, witnessed by First Minister Alex Salmond, remains unfulfilled and the prospects of a SSE-linked project coming to Dundee appear to be receding further with this week’s scrapping of the £325 million biomass project.
Last week also saw German industrial giants Siemens choose Hull instead of Dundee for a £310 million turbine development generating 1,000 jobs, and Spanish energy company Gamesa has already taken its project to Leith in preference over Dundee.
Mr Guild refuses to accept that the declaration is worthless and Dundee’s efforts to attract significant renewable industry investment have failed.
“The game is not up, there is still much to play for,” he said. “There are still some very big renewable energy projects proposed for the North Sea and in the Moray Firth.
“These turbine developments are worth many millions of pounds and we will be playing as hard as we can to bring them to Dundee.
“We will do all we can to promote the suitability of Dundee harbour for this work.
“We do have a memorandum of understanding with SSE and, in light of their announcement this week, we will be seeking an early meeting with them to clarify their intentions.”
SSE said it would maintain its investment in its flagship Beatrice project in the Moray Firth, a scheme that would jointly form the world’s third largest windfarm, but would reduce its stake from 75% to 50%.
The company also said it would only support the giant Seagreen project in the outer firths of the Tay and Forth through to construction consent stage.
Dundee Labour leader Kevin Keenan considered the council’s memorandum of understanding with SSE is now worthless.
He said: “I urge Ken Guild to speak to the people in Hull to see what we can learn from their success. Maybe we can salvage something for Dundee so that the engineering expertise we have here can benefit.”