Windpower is key for Teesside firms

Mar 19 2010 by Kelley Price, Evening Gazette

ENERGY bosses have said the Tees Valley has the potential to build a strong offshore wind supply chain, as the UK’s first turbine training tower was unveiled in the region.

Industry chief say Teesside firms are already seeing contracts come through - and brushed off criticisms that windpower was too expensive compared to other forms of green energy, claiming the technology had the potential to generate large amounts of power quickly.

David Kidney Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, unveiled the 27 metre high training tower at Narec, the New and Renewable Energy Centre, in Blyth, Northumberland, yesterday.

The North-east is in the running for a £100m turbine research centre that could create hundreds of jobs, after Mitsubishi Power Systems Europe committed to invest the cash in green energy research and development.

US company Clipper Wind is using Narec’s world-class facilities to test its blade prototype, which at 70m is the world’s largest and is due to be built in the North-east. Last month, Narec was awarded £18.5m by the Government towards building an offshore facility to trial the huge structures before they are sent out to sea.

Ray Thompson, energy and engineering business manager at One North East, said the region was building a global technology hub and Teesside was well placed to benefit.

“Teesside companies have a sound oil, gas and engineering background and are well placed,” he said, “we are already seeing the effects happening on Teesside. The likes of Heerema at Hartlepool and Tees Alliance Group are already moving into the industry.

“The big projects are still a few years away, but the economic development potential is enormous. We are seeing the creation of an industry the size of shipbuilding, a new industrial revolution.”

But a recent report by Parsons Brinckerhoff, which calculated power generation costs for renewable technologies, highlighted offshore wind as up to four times more expensive than biomass, yet Government has claimed it can supply a third of the UK’s energy needs by 2020.