British ports welcome funding for floating offshore wind but looking for further phases

April 5, 2023

British ports welcome funding for floating offshore wind, but stresses need for further sums to help achieve government ambitions.

The British Ports Association has welcomed the confirmation and launch of the £160m Floating Offshore Wind Manufacturing Investment Scheme for port infrastructure but suggested more funding will be needed to help achieve the sizable offshore wind targets.

Commenting, Richard Ballantyne, Chief Executive of British Ports Association, the trade body which represents the ports and harbours sector, including all the UK’s man energy gateways, suggested;

“FLOWMIS is a welcome initiative and we are pleased to see it finally launched. It will certainly help kickoff the work needed to secure some of the UK’s offshore winds targets. However it must be stressed that further phases of funding could be needed in order to achieve our ambitious energy aims. The size of the task ahead is certainly bold but the UK ports industry is raring to go!

We would therefore suggest that this is the first of several stages of funding the government allocates to help with the ongoing rollout of FLOW projects. Of course we want to see the developments and jobs based here in the UK and the funding will be important to help secure this activity. Alongside this there also needs to be resource and improvements to the port planning and consenting processes.

The recent report by the Floating Offshore Wind Taskforce identifies the scale of the task ahead and so we need to convince those across government about what the sector needs and sensible development timescales.”

RICHARD BALLANTYNE, CEO BPA, OBE

The UK Department for Energy and Net Zero has today opened its Floating Offshore Wind Manufacturing Investment Scheme to support the delivery of port infrastructure required to facilitate the growth of floating offshore wind. Details and guidance are here.