BP and EnBW set sights on Scottish offshore wind

UK oil major BP and the German energy company EnBW will be taking part in the upcoming ScotWind seabed leasing round in Scotland.

The companies have now launched a bespoke online portal for the Scottish engineering and supply sector, as they aim to expand their partnership’s offshore wind portfolio by participating in the ScotWind auction.

The supply chain portal will act as a central hub advertising all current and future opportunities for sub-contractors and suppliers associated with any development projects should the companies be successful in the auction.

Companies based in Scotland, with significant operations in Scotland or that have plans to relocate their base or operations to Scotland, are encouraged to register interest for future opportunities, BP said.

”The Scottish supply chain has played a pioneering role in the development of the North Sea and the global energy industry and we are confident they will be key to developing this new industry offshore Scotland,” Dev Sanyal, BP’s executive vice president of gas and low carbon energy, said.

”Scotland has a world-class supply chain with decades of experience in offshore energy – that deep skillset can be readily applied to offshore wind. This portal will ensure the Scottish supply chain – from listed companies to small, family-run operations – can easily access and pair their skills with future upcoming opportunities.”

The site will also invite SMEs and firms looking to transfer their skills or operations to offshore wind. 

Earlier this year, BP entered the UK’s offshore wind power sector, currently the largest in the world, together with EnBW.

They formed a 50-50 joint venture to jointly develop and operate two leases in the Irish Sea that offer a combined potential generating capacity of 3 GW – sufficient to power more than 3.4 million UK households with clean electricity.   

In 2020, EnBW started-up Germany’s largest offshore wind project – the Hohe See and Albatros developments in the North Sea, with a combined output of 609 MW.

Last year, BP formed a partnership with Equinor to develop offshore wind projects in the US, including joining projects with a planned potential 4.4 GW generating capacity.

BP aims to have developed around 50 GW of net renewable generating capacity by 2030, up from 3.3GW in 2020. This relates to the aggregate quantity, net to BP, of renewable generating capacity that has been developed to the point of Final Investment Decision.  The strategy also includes plans to increase bp’s annual low carbon investment 10-fold, to around US$ 5 billion a year.   

The company has recently posted around 100 job vacancies related to offshore wind.