Businesses operating outside of the renewables sphere have been urged to explore how they can play a part in a burgeoning global sector.
Widening the supply chain base is seen as critical to achieving ambitious deployment targets, now looming ever closer.
Having heard Humber renewables champion Emma Toulson explain how regional expansion alone is set to see operational capacity increase from 4.9GW to 13.8GW by the decade's end, Len Taylor, the Northern Powerhouse sector specialist for offshore wind and renewables at the Department for International Trade, used the Humber’s Offshore Wind Connections conference to make the appeal.
Read more: RenewableUK CEO calls for 'radical reformist approach' for offshore wind success
Mr Taylor said: “There is a shortage of people, a shortage of capability and alongside that, a shortage of capacity. Lots of industrial sectors could transition their skills and help to close the gaps."
He followed case studies from regional operators Boston Energy and Specialist Marine Consultants on the Hull stage, with respective managing directors Julian Cattermole and Ian Coates outlining how they entered the industry and are now thriving overseas. They diversified from aviation and oil and gas backgrounds to provide technical services to project at home and abroad.
Later at the event Hobson & Porter, a Hull construction firm, presented its case study on entering the sector, having delivered for Orsted with the £14 million East Coast Hub, with Grimsby's Bacon Engineering also highlighting its evolution from trawling to engineering support.
Mr Taylor said: "The world wants to speak to you. During the last three months we have had 50 inward trade missions from countries around the world, and all want to understand what we have done in the region. That fits in with expansion. It is great to have a vibrant domestic marketplace, but to really grow the potential of businesses and do what has been demonstrated, then the international element is a core platform. This is vital for the UK economy, vital for sustainability of jobs, vital for profitability and to benefit the local communities as well.
“We are seen as the centre of innovation in the offshore wind, and we are seeing it in aligned sectors. It is recognised internationally.”
A Brazilian trade mission even took in the conference, with Portuguese translation provided.
Attention also turned to attracting talent to the sector.
Jane Cooper, RenewableUK’s director of offshore wind, led a session on the importance of encouraging children to look at the sector, well aware that those required are already in education.
She said: “We are going to need a lot of people to do this. In the Humber there are about 4,700 people working in offshore wind, and this needs to increase by 10,000 by the end of the decade.
“Offshore wind really offers a genuine opportunity for young and working age people to work in an area were they have grown up.”
Zoe Keeton, head of regulatory affairs at RWE, told how one issue for the most part was the lack of visibility for the industry.
“The Humber is the exception to that,” she said. “It is very much the Energy Estuary, we have Grimsby which is the largest operations and maintenance hub in the world and in Hull, Siemens, which has become a centre point for supply chain - we even had the turbine blade in the city’s streets. We recognise how this area embraced that energy, but even then this area still has a shortage of skilled labour right across the board. We need more collaboration between developers and the supply chain, collaboration with policy makers and academia, the people who can provide the training.
“We need to get that message out there, all the excitement and all the energy we have and take it out far broader than our current sectors. We need to be creating materials that we can take out and be ambassadors. It is the people that make a project happen, and keep them running.”
The renewables exploratorium being developed in Grimsby to inspire children was also highlighted by Ms Keeton.
Read next:
Humber's offshore wind exemplar status toasted as huge conference opens
Two new state-of-the-art offshore wind vessels are heading to Grimsby
Orsted committed to 'green-lighting' £8b Hornsea Three offshore wind farm
Maritime UK's Offshore Wind Plan launches in Grimsby
Port of Grimsby to progress green vessel infrastructure work after feasibility project success
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