Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng has told how the £75 million sailing into Able Marine Energy Park will help attract investment in a supply chain that has been lacking as the country took a world-leading role in deployment.
And he explained how he was excited to be finally delivering after a fallow period for the “big space in the right place”, with two major strategies he has led combining to build appetite and ambition.
Able Marine Energy Park’s planning delays saw it miss out on the first phase of industrial development, with the BEIS department Mr Kwarteng heads acknowledging the ‘second wind’ for the Humber in the official announcement, issued a week on from The Budget that trailed it.
In an interview with Business Live on the back of the Prime Minister-led announcement, Mr Kwarteng said: “This is fantastic news, really really strong, pledging £75 million to Able Marine Energy Park, which I know will be key to attracting investment for offshore wind ambitions.
“It will enable the Humber to invest and produce a really good platform which other companies can invest in and then provide something like 3,000 jobs that will help the 海角视频 supply chain.
“We are the leading source of wind power in the world, a third of the global capacity is here in the 海角视频, but historically we have tried and haven’t succeeded effectively as we should have done, in driving 海角视频 content in the supply chain. This investment really helps to do that.”
While eight wind farms are now operating or in construction off the Humber’s North Sea approaches, it took until the fifth - Race Bank - to see significant 海角视频 content with Hull-produced blades.
Of the time lag between installation and owning the supply chain - which has so far seen AMEP hold imported BMWs rather than export turbines and towers, Mr Kwarteng said: “You’ve hit the nail on the head. We have been talking about this sort of thing for ages and finally we are delivering.
Most Read
“I am delighted that in my 18 months as Energy Minister I managed to help the great team in BEIS to craft the 10-point plan. On top of that, reinforcing that, was the Energy White Paper, and I was very happy to land that.
“I think these two things have really galvanised movement, people have been attracted by our energy focus and Net Zero agenda and I was very pleased to see last week, in the Budget, the freeports status confirmed for Humber and renewed commitments to what we are trying to achieve.”
Familiar with the estuary, he addressed The Waterline Summit in the autumn, and launched the Gigastack green hydrogen project in Grimsby, sandwiching in Siemens Gamesa and Drax tours, and said the area “had framed my relentlessly optimistic approach to the Net Zero agenda as well as the jobs agenda”.
And referencing another similar-sized pot sought to kickstart carbon capture and storage, he said: “The Humber cluster was traditionally carbon emitting, but the cluster through the development of offshore wind in the North Sea, the deployment of carbon capture and this investment can really become a model of the transition from one form of industrial power to another. A cleaner, greener form of industrial power.
“The Humber - and I was always very conscious of this as Energy Minister - is absolutely key to that strategy and I’m delighted to see the investment and enthusiasm to drive this.
“If we can land as we will do, carbon capture projects, electrolyser projects and offshore wind supply chain manufacturing, it is a great story and the transition will be successful.”
He described the hydrogen innovation as “extremely exciting” recalling his meeting with the consortium including Sheffield-based ITM Power, Orsted and Phillips 66. “They are very, very focused on trying to produce renewable hydrogen and there are other people up in the Humber area very interested in using it so there is a natural demand for green hydrogen and clean power,” he said.
Don’t miss
“It represents an incredible industrial opportunity in the Humber, for people like those at Phillips 66, the refinery, and I think this investment will really reinforce that.”
And he believes the strong industrial base afforded by the decarbonisation agenda will blossom post-Brexit, having been asked what the departure from the EU means for the area. Flagging Lia Nici’s strong freeport campaigning, he said: “I think Brexit represents a huge advantage, and many of your MPs, people like Andrew Percy and Martin Vickers were very much part of that Brexit story.
“For places like Humber the international strength of the 海角视频, the global partnerships, the global trade, are things that will really benefit, just as they did in the past. If you look back before we were members of the EEC as it was called, it was our strong industrial base that provided a lot of the economic backbone to this country, and there’s no reason why, with the energy transition, we can’t recapture that.”