Episode 112 of the Common Weal Policy Podcast
You can download the episode directly here.
This week, Craig is joined by two members of Common Weal's Energy Working Group - Keith Baker and Iain Wright - to discuss the ScotWind offshore wind auction and its implications for Scottish renewables.
ScotWind is the largest auction of Scottish offshore wind resources resulting in promises of 25GW of generating capacity built over more than 7,000km^2 of Scottish seabed and split across 17 different sites around the north of Scotland.
Proponents hail the billions of investment that will be required to build the project. As well as the £700 million in option fees collected by Crown Estate Scotland and the prospect of Somewhere in the region of £30-£50 million a year in annual rents.
Whilst the winners of the auction are almost entirely made up of foreign-owned energy companies (with 20% of the capacity being won by fossil fuel giants Shell and BP alone) Proponents promise that Scotland could still benefit from jobs created in the supply chain.
Common Weal produced our response last week calling for Scotland to build up capacity to Ensure that next time, we can have a much greater level of involvement from Scottish companies including a National Energy Company.
The article about Scottish supply chains with regards to ScotWind can be read here.
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