黑洞社区

Three-quarters of the supply chain for the 拢29bn offshore wind industry should come from the UK, according to energy minister Andrea Leadsom.

Speaking to 黑洞社区 this week, Leadsom said the government is committed to boosting the offshore wind power sector and expects to see British contractors benefitting from the investment.

Leadsom said: 鈥淲e do expect to see more offshore wind but we expect to see the costs coming down.

鈥淎lso, very importantly, I expect to see a lot of the UK supply chain benefitting from those contracts. The offshore wind industry has its own 50% target [to use UK firms in its supply chain]; I think it should be much closer to 75% personally.鈥�

Overseas contractors have tended to lead on the construction of UK wind farms, including German giant Siemens, Dutch builder Van Oord and Danish firm Dong.

According to figures compiled exclusively for 黑洞社区 in February by data company Barbour ABI, 拢29bn of wind farms were planned in the UK that did not yet have contractors appointed, including the world鈥檚 largest offshore wind farm, the 拢15bn Hornsea One off the coast of Yorkshire.

The wind sector is enjoying a surge of investment - the 拢29bn figure dwarfs the 拢12.3bn of contracts awarded on wind farm developments over the past five years.

The government announced last November it plans to run three strike price auctions for offshore wind farms by 2020, with the first auction taking place by the end of this year. Funding will only be granted to developers that can meet a strike price of 拢92.50 per MWh, the same as the Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant.

Leadsom spoke to 黑洞社区 at the launch of the UK鈥檚 first and only 鈥渆co town鈥� in Bicester, Oxfordshire - conceived under the last Labour government鈥檚 eco towns policy.

Four sites were approved under the coalition government, but in April 2011 the communities department announced that only the site in Bicester would be built to the proposed eco town standards.

However, Leadsom insisted the government hasn鈥檛 given up on eco towns and said there is still a future for them if the demand is there.

She said: 鈥淲e haven鈥檛 actually scrapped eco towns. All we鈥檝e said is we鈥檙e not going to force eco towns on people, so we鈥檙e delighted to have eco towns where communities want to have them.鈥�

The first homes in the 拢800m eco town - which will have 6,000 homes when completed - have already been finished, with 18 residents moving in this month.

Willmott Dixon won a 拢27m contract to build the first 91 homes as part of the 391-home first phase of the overall development, which will take another 20 years to complete.

Steve Hornblow, project director at the developer A2Dominion, said a contractor for the second phase will be appointed in the next few weeks.