THE boss of a Tees Valley offshore wind company has welcomed a Government green light for further projects.

Chief executive of Marine Projects International (MPI) Offshore, Paul Gibson, said yesterday’s announcement will accelerate UK offshore wind energy sector - but he warned a wide skills gap needs to be plugged if the Tees Valley is to fully exploit the industry’s massive potential for 70,000 UK jobs.

According to the Government’s Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), UK seas can take a mammoth 25GWs more in offshore wind projects. This is on top of the 8GWs already online or in planning - giving enough energy to power every home in the UK.

Yesterday the Government said the UK’s seas could provide enough extra wind energy to power the equivalent of 19 million homes.

The results mean the Crown Estate can push ahead with round three of leasing UK waters for offshore wind farms - which has earmarked 11 areas of potential.

Stokesley-based MPI Offshore, part of the Dutch-owned MPI Holdings group, owns the MV Resolution and is building two more state-of-the-art vessels - MV Adventure and MV Discovery - which will be capable of installing some of the largest offshore wind turbines in the world.

Mr Gibson said: “This is great news, we expected the announcement around October. It will accelerate projects that are out at the moment, and create focus where there was uncertainty before. It’s good news for the two new ships we are building in China.”

He said developers could now build within a 12-mile limit of the UK’s shores, making the industry more sustainable.

“A lot of wind farms were going to be built outside the 12-mile limit, which makes it more difficult to get the power ashore,” he said.

“Projects will be more economic, developers and utilities will look to build them earlier. This is a step in the right direction.

“But our skills base is low,” he added, “the biggest difficulty if it all comes to fruition is getting the manpower to build the projects. People will only commit to this type of work if there is continuity to it.” Mr Gibson said he hoped many of the 70,000 predicted jobs to be created would come to the North-east.

Energy and Climate Change Minister Lord Hunt said wind power presented a “huge opportunity” for the UK industry.

“With the right support, we can grow the industry even further, supporting tens of thousands of high value, green manufacturing jobs.”

The North-east is championing the development of new energy as part of the Great North Revolution, launched recently by the Gazette and the CBI to map out a strategy for growing the regional economy. Developing renewable energy and climate change technologies is seen as a key sector for the region.

For more details on the campaign log on to www.nebusiness.co.uk/revolution