4
COVER FEATURE
ETZ LTD CEO, MAGGIE MCGINLAY,
DISCUSSES REPOSITIONING THE NORTH EAST OF SCOTLAND AS THE NETZERO ENERGY CAPITAL OF EUROPE
All of us who live in North East of Scotland are acutely aware how reliant our economy has been on a worldclass oil and gas sector. For almost 50 years the region has made a massive contribution to the UK’s economic productivity and energy requirements and, in doing so, has sustained thousands of jobs in and across Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire. The industry is now maturing, and, in the context of an unprecedented climate emergency, there are widespread calls from government and industry for energy transition activities to be accelerated. It is sobering to reflect that the UK oil and gas industry lost around 35,000 direct and indirect jobs in the last 18 months, many of which were across the North-East, so the scale of challenge is stark. We want to harness the skills and experience of those 50 years and put it towards a world leading hub for renewables energies – offshore wind, green and blue hydrogen, carbon capture and storage– creating a long term and sustainable industry base that allows the North-East to re-position itself as the net-zero energy capital of Europe. This is exactly what ETZ Ltd, the not-for-profit organisation I’m privileged to lead, has been established to do. We operate on the basis of no commercial gain and with one over-riding goal; to protect and create as many jobs as possible ensuring a sustainable and vibrant future for the North East and the people who live and work here. The Energy Transition Zone is a vital project that will allow Aberdeen and the North East to achieve this ambition. The reality, however, is that we face stiff competition from ports around the UK and rest of Europe who are trying to emulate our plans but I’m very clear that we cannot and must not let Aberdeen lose out on this. If we were to, we should truly fear for the future of the city and region. We are progressing at pace to ensure this doesn’t happen and work is already underway to repurpose and refurbish key locations within the existing industrial sites in Aberdeen which will be at the heart of the thriving cluster within the Energy Transition Zone.
www.ogv.energy I April 2022
Critical to the Zone’s success will be our ability to attract specialist high-value manufacturing to support the massive opportunity the ScotWind leasing round provides. The Crown Estate decision to approve developments that will generate 24.8GW of offshore wind power, a significant increase on the anticipated 11GW, is hugely encouraging and it’s great to see the Scottish Government’s recognition of the sheer scale of the opportunity before us. 18GW of power announced, representing over 70% of all successful bids, are within 100
nautical miles of Aberdeen and therefore this region is ideally placed to become a globally recognised hub supporting the high value manufacturing, operations and maintenance and innovation required to deliver these developments at pace. The Energy Transition Zone will also be home to a brand new National Floating Offshore Wind Innovation Centre allowing the North East to harness its first mover credentials and maximise the significant floating offshore wind opportunity. This is particularly important given the massive 14.6GW of floating offshore wind power announced.
