A pivotal year for Scottish offshore wind

A reNEWS dispatch from trade group Scottish Renewables' Offshore Wind Conference 2026 in Glasgow. Hear Net Zero and Energy Cabinet Secretary Gillian Martin's call to level the playing field, Crown Estate Scotland on a pivotal year for ScotWind leases and Chinese turbine supplier Mingyang's blueprint for European expansion.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:01

Welcome to the Renews podcast with me, Stephen Dumont.

SPEAKER_03 0:08

I would like to see more. You know, we we've got you know 15 gigabots presented. The energy minister said I would be cherished uh about this, but no, I'm not, I'm ambitious.

SPEAKER_02 0:29

This week the Scottish offshore wind sector gathered in Glasgow for the annual Scottish Renewables Offshore Wind Conference. Delegates were basking in the glow of two Scottish winners in January's AR-7 results, with a strong sense of relief that projects north of the border secured CFDs despite deep business case challenges. However, the sector was also looking ahead to this year's AR8 and in particular seeking clarity on tough transmission charges, which make sites north of the border uncompetitive with wind farms to the south. Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero and Energy Gillian Martin told delegates on day one she was behind calls to level the playing field.

SPEAKER_03 1:26

A lot online with the UK Government. We continue to urge the UK Government to work in partnership with us. They address our concerns, our shared concerns, on high and volatile transmission charges, route connection delays, and contract reduce. We need to ensure that Scottish projects have a level playing field and their challenges are recognised. And decarbonisation isn't going to happen without Scotland.

SPEAKER_02 2:07

Later, Martin hit back at claims she was asking for too much.

SPEAKER_03 2:12

Obviously, I'm very pleased about Berwick Bank and very pleased with Pentland. And you know, I said that on the day that I was you know delighted about both those projects going through. I would like to see more. I always want to see more. You know, we've got you know 15 gigawatts consented um projects, and well, uh the energy minister said I was being chirpish uh about this, but no, I'm not, I'm ambitious. You know, I'm not being charged, I'm not taking away from the achievement of Berick Bank and Pentland. That's fantastic news. It's particular, it's great news for those developers, but it's particularly good news for the supply chain because the supply chain needs to see that order group continuing, and obviously the supply chain isn't just the offshore wind supply chain, it's the supply chain for the whole of energy, and they they've had a tough time recently. You know, there are peaks and troughs of activity, and you know, um you know when you talk about policy certainty driving investment, there needs to also not just be policy certainty, but there needs to be things that have been driven through that are ready to go. So I'm ambitious, I'm I'm all ambitious in this room. Um I'm I look forward to ERA and look forward to ER9, and I want to see more of those projects coming through.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

Martin then touched on Scotland and a number of projects seeking clarity. So I caught up with Crown Estate Scotland to ask why this is a pivotal year for the massive pipeline of leases.

SPEAKER_00 3:49

So the reason that I think it's pivotal is that we're four years into the Scotland project option agreements. So on the basis that these agreements generally last for around a decade, we're nearing the halfway stage and the projects have moved significantly through their development phase. So their ability to go to another level of granular detail, provide some more robust evidence which underpins what they are looking to deliver is really valuable right now.

SPEAKER_02 4:20

When Scotland was first envisaged, the supply chain investment piece and the ongoing check on the developers around the supply chain plans was really important. In the intervening period, we've had an industry gone through a really difficult moment, not least in Scotland where there are business case challenges. What should we expect to see in terms of firm commitments in those supply chain plans this year? And on the Crown Estate Scotland side, are you guys bringing a bit of flexibility to the process to realise that perhaps some of these supply chain documents are more intentions rather than firm commitments of investment given the investment environment we're in?

SPEAKER_00 5:10

Yeah, you're absolutely right to pick up this point. It's I mean the landscape that we're operating in has changed significantly from when even the Scotland leasing round was um was was first kind of confirmed. And and where we are now is is really in a space of I mean we have made significant progress. I I mentioned that on the stage, and I think it's right to reflect on that. What we do need to do is be flexible and adaptable in terms of what current market conditions are. You know, allocation round seven has given a significant boost to the market, to confidence. We need to continue that through allocation rounds eight, nine, and beyond. You look at the portfolio that we have, particularly in Scotland, we've got 40 gigawatts roughly in a pipeline, and and our role at Crown Estate Scotland is really to work with these projects to enable the development of that, always seeking long-term lasting value for the Scottish people. And that's that's our primary focal point. And we recall how the leasing was undertaken, we refer to capped option fees, all the things that have been referenced a number of times over recent years. And was that the right thing to do? Would you have done anything different? And actually recognising that the market is incredibly difficult for projects, especially in the north of Scotland, with the 10 years charging and etc., which are very well documented, we remain focused on the wider value piece. So we work with industry and we are a key stakeholder in these discussions around 10 years charging and consenting, and how we can work with we're we're not a regulator, but how we can work with regulators to help them move their processes forward, but also really reminding ourselves of why the leasing was designed in the way it was, and actually that supply chain element is a real focal point, and and being able to look not only at what either 2023 told us or 2026 will tell us, but actually what does 2030, 35 and the decades to come look like should we realise the benefits of what is in these statements? And and the real nuance is behind the figures, as I said before, around whether there are concrete investment plans that sit behind the figures that come through in the commitments tables, or whether perhaps there's an assumption that an investment will take place, and should a facility be there, then I will buy my my cables or my components or whatever it may be from that facility. And what we need to understand is the variance that's in there, and actually what is really credible and and what we can what we can really use to leverage that investment to move forward.

SPEAKER_02 7:57

It's correct. Obviously, now Scotland project came through AR7, AR8 will be a challenge, as we heard this morning, because of various different challenges around policy and grids uh the grid situation. So we are staring at a possibility that you know you mentioned the decades there of the option fees. We may see the first projects taking up a large chunk of that option period before they get into construction. You know, what's your view of that pace of development and what can Crown Estate Scotland do to modify the approach to give relief to developers so that they have a slightly longer timeline on these leases?

SPEAKER_00 8:51

Okay, it's a it's a good question. Um so there is recognition that we are looking at the the duration of option agreements, and we do have uh tools at our disposal that we can we can kind of pull out in order to to move that forward with industry. Um we we operate commercially, we have to attract market value, and at any point in time when we're looking at what what that is, depending on what the ask is, then we'll we'll kind of um respond to that in in a suitable way. And certainly in terms of that time scale and the duration, um, you know, industry are are kind of referencing that actually, depending on when their grid connection is, they might already be out of auction period. And what does that mean? So that is all a live conversation at the moment, and actually it's moving through um through consultation with both ourselves and and key stakeholders. What I would say is I'm I'm minded to reflect back to you know, five years ago, the ask of industry was we need a we need a pipeline, we need visibility of a pipeline, we need more regular allocation rounds, we need a route to market. And actually, we look at where we are now, you have a really substantial pipeline that is very visible. You have annual allocation rounds that are coming from the UK government and contract contract for difference, and actually that route to market with the work that that NISO and off-gem and all these key stakeholders are doing, you can, you know, if we think optimistically, we will get um a positive outcome for industry in order for them to deploy their project. So we at Griny State Scotland will do all we can to enable that to take place.

SPEAKER_02 10:30

The Cabinet Secretary launched the new offshore wind policy statement this morning, which I was flicking through and it committed to no new lease rounds in the near term. You mentioned the pipeline that's already there, which is you know significant and much larger than anyone ever expected when Scot Wind started. But we've also seen in the last few months the first lease be handed back from Shell. Are you concerned that following AR7 and with the uncertainties, particularly around tenuous and grid charges, that we may see more leases handed back? And what are those discussions looking like with the industry?

SPEAKER_00 11:14

It's it's really right to recognise it. And you know, when asked about this previously, and uh and I think uh my response is going to be very similar in that attrition of offshore wind is is a natural course of the development cycle. You know, I think that's you can you can see why projects are in this 10-year cycle of development because it's not necessarily straightforward and they do have kind of barriers to overcome and the policy landscape moves so much. So attrition is a natural kind of evolution of offshore wind development. So we I think first and foremost we recognise that, um, and also we remain positive in terms of the pipeline that is there. We have our option fees secured, so when we refer to or we relate to potentially even round four across the rest of the UK, it's not comparing apples and apples in that regard. So, you know, in terms of our response to any sites that have and potentially may in the future come back to us, we are looking at that um carefully. Um, we have another number of options that we can consider, and we'll run through all of them at any particular time given when that situation arises. For example, you know, Campion has been handed back, and we are continuing to review the options for that site, and we'll reflect that within the current market position and all the things that we refer to in the course of this chat.

SPEAKER_02 12:51

You are listening to the Renews Podcast. For breaking news or to access our exclusive market intelligence on the global renewable sector, subscribe at renews.biz. Now, back to the show. Later on the morning of day one, Aman Wang, Ming Yang's global strategy and investment CEO for the UK and Ireland, joined the conference by video link from Beijing. He was speaking as Prime Minister Keir Starmer was in the Chinese capital as the wait goes on for a decision from his UK government on whether it will give the OEM the green light to establish a factory in Scotland and supply UK projects. Wang set out what he said is Mingyang's transparent and pragmatic approach to cybersecurity and geopolitical issues. He then outlined the company's expansion plan in Europe.

SPEAKER_04 13:50

Our internationalization strategy into Europe is fundamentally a localization strategy. By localization, we not only mean localizing for manufacturing facility, but also the controls, the government, governance model, and ONS services, cybersecurity services into the local environment. And in that regard, we have, as most people have learned from media announcement, that we have struggled with strategic alliance with options energy media. I don't want to spill the thunder for the data this week, but there's something we will announce something in Beijing as part of the two state-based parents for two channels, particularly around cybersecurity. And what we mean by that is we will uh jointly build a cybersecurity adjoint to specifically provide cybersecurity, data security control system services to our future ONM business in the UK. And hopefully they can't externalize that to our clients to choose to do so. And that joint venture, that independent third-party joint venture entity, will provide the services in an argument fashion to our future potential turbines in Europe.

SPEAKER_02 15:25

Wang then addressed the ongoing uncertainty around the UK's decision process regarding the Chinese OEM and whether Mingyang is looking at other locations for a turbine factory in Europe.

SPEAKER_04 15:47

But I think the act was as anyone would understand that. Number two, that we are taking me on the options energy by taking the right approach to pragmatically address the problem, not to avoid it. Number three, specifically, we are having ongoing dialogue and in a collaborative fashion to hopefully jointly design not only the solution, but also the future-proof standard and practice and policies for the future. Because Myanmar will not be the only time we involve ancient or foreign participants into European society. What we could expect is that this state was hopefully is the positive turning point involved in UK-Thina relationship after the last golden era. I think it's about time to do so. I think if we're looking at energy collaboration, energy transmission collaboration between the two countries, the compatibility between the two economies is so huge. Our transparency, UK is interval part and the pillar of our clinical transparency with our two. And in parallel, we do have in the continent. We have short listed from 194 volts into the final five element, and then we cause what happened and focus our energy on the last even months to be precisely and wanting to push it to as much as we can today. Right now, as much more than we can do is the market instead of purely for the fundamental to make a decision. It's only it will be something possible to be that part of the function. So yes, we do have it happening, and we've been very transparent, and we'll ever mind that the UK is uh part of that. We're close to making it happen.

SPEAKER_02 18:38

The Ming Yang man's appearance was the star attraction on day one. But how did his comments go down?

SPEAKER_01 18:46

So I'm Jonathan Cole, I'm an independent advisor to the energy sector and an ambassador for the Global Wind Energy Council. Well, I I think that there was a couple of things which were interesting to hear. One is the level of transparency and openness that they were willing to show on how they are approaching this cyber security issue. So they're not shying away from it, they're trying to confront it and bring it out into the open. And the fact that they're actually progressing a solution using an independent party who I guess is a well recognised party in the UK energy sector to try to bring that solution forward was quite interesting to I think a lot of the audience. I mean, I'm not an expert and not able to comment on the technicalities of the solution and how fit for purpose they are, but I think it was the right approach, which is to get out on the table and talk about it. Because the more we can talk about this as a technical problem that has a technical solution, the more we can move on from it and start making decisions about the role of the Chinese companies in our energy transition in a rational informed way. And then on the supply chain side. I mean two interesting things. One was the um the fact that a big part of their cyber approach but also their inward investment approach is to create as much localisation um and kind of puts on the ground in, for example, Scotland, if that's where the factory is. And I think that's a lot what the UK government and Scottish government want to hear is that that's their approach. And the fact that they're linking those two things together, they're using one to demonstrate the other, is quite refreshing. The other thing though, which was interesting was the the comment from a man that they had other options than the UK for this supply chain hub. Now, whether they're going to get an easier ride in some of these other EU ports than they're getting in a UK port, I don't know. But interesting for the UK government to hear that, I suppose, because you know the longer they delay the decision, it must follow that the more risk there is that Mingyang start looking seriously in other places.

SPEAKER_02 20:58

You you've been on both sides of this really over the years, as in the development side and you know, in your role in recent times with GWEC and policy. What's your view on this topic of Asian OEMs in the wind sector, particularly offshore wind in Europe? We've seen, you mentioned other jurisdictions, Germany already push back against uh Mingyang, we've seen the delays here in the UK. It's not a very clear cut on the policy side what's going to happen. But for the industry, do we need Asian OEMs here?

SPEAKER_01 21:40

Well, so and I guess there's no yes or no to the do we need, because I think that it's a variable outcome. What happens if you do or don't have uh you know these Asian, particularly Chinese suppliers? I mean I think the truth of the matter is that on critical components, every region of the world except China is going to be under-supplied between now and the end of the decade for offshore wind, right? So there needs to be some boosting of capacity. If it's not coming from Chinese suppliers, it needs to be grown locally, which means there needs to be more effort made locally to stimulate that capacity growth. So you know that that that's one factor to it. I think it's also probably fair to say that if you don't allow in Chinese suppliers and you don't have an open, you know, um kind of fair trade practice, you probably make the energy transition a little bit harder to obtain, takes a bit longer to get there, probably costs a bit more. Now that could very well be your choice because on the other side of that you do have legitimate national security and national interest issues that are making this a difficult decision, right? Now, on the national security issue, if that's all about cyber, then what we heard on the panel today is that there could be technical solutions for that technical problem and that could take that out of the equation. If your national interest concerns are more about uh you know bringing in entities into the market that are receiving unfair subsidies and state aid contributions, that's something that can then be dealt with in trade agreements. If your issue is I want jobs locally, and that's absolutely right, that in this energy transition we need to replace the displaced jobs in the high carbon economies. It's not a nice to do, it's a must-do, right? So we have to do that. But again, there's ways you can probably do that by bringing in that inward investment linked to investment in facilities creating jobs locally, linked to IP transfer locally, maybe even linked to allowing access to the Chinese market to some of the European and British technology providers. So there's ways in which these things can be solved. And I guess my big plea is that there's no right or wrong answer. And yes, we could probably achieve energy transition without Chinese companies, but it will come at a cost, it will come at a delay, and there will be other consequences of that. So let's at the very least make sure we understand those before we make the decision. And if the decision is to go European only, let's understand then that we need to then do a lot more to stimulate and support those European businesses in going forward. And if we can't do that, we maybe need to think again about the decision about the conditions for letting Chinese companies in.

SPEAKER_02 24:37

Does the sector though, offshore wind sector, does it need a decision of sorts from governments? We've seen the UK, you know, to talk today was of a delayed decision, or you know, we we don't have clarity whether it's delayed or not. The German government sort of shied away from this idea that it had made a decision not to allow them on the LuxCara project. I mean, does developers really need to know yes or no, or maybe, and under what circumstances, don't they?

SPEAKER_01 25:11

Yeah, I mean absolutely developers will need to know the position before they can go past a point of no return with the turbine supply. I mean, bear in mind, if you're developing an offshore project, several years ahead of actually starting to put things in the water, you have to have chosen that turbine because you have to design your electrical configuration, your site layout, your foundations, your logistics, everything has to come on the back of that turbine choice, right? So you have to make that choice early. And I guess what's holding a lot of developers back right now is not knowing whether there's going to be some regulatory barrier, not having the answer to some of these cyber issues, wondering whether there's going to be tariffs imposed or precluded altogether. And that's blocking. So until these matters get answered in a clearer way, I can't see any credible steps being taken by a project or a developer to move forward with the Chinese turbine. So it will have to be decided sooner than later. Um, I think it got made more complicated this week, funnily enough, because we had this Hamburg Declaration, which I think was a great thing overall, by the way, this idea of a coalition of willing states continuing to push the energy transition. The idea of creating more interconnection for offshore, I think that's a brilliant thing. I think it's a great opportunity for Scotland to export its abundant surplus capacity. But it comes with it the complication then that it's not just one state acting unilaterally now. There has to be some kind of uniformity of approach because if one breaks rights, they all will be impacted. So I think it's it's got more complicated this week, but the sooner it can get answered categorically, I think the sooner we can start moving forward.

SPEAKER_02 26:59

The Renews podcast was produced and edited by me, Stephen Don. Click subscribe wherever you get your podcast to make sure you never miss an episode. For more exclusive market intelligence on the renewable sector, see renews.