Recently, the UK Government confirmed a £160m Floating Offshore Wind Manufacturing Investment Scheme (FLOWMIS) for port infrastructure, but many across the sector suggest more funding will be needed to help achieve the sizable offshore wind targets.
The fund is designed to support critical port infrastructure that will enable the delivery of floating offshore wind.
Currently, The Welsh Ports of Milford Haven and Port Talbot do not have the capacity to fully deliver all the functions and services required to deploy a floating wind development and investment will be critical.
Green Economy Wales spoke with Stephen Crabb MP, to explain the current status of FLOWMIS and its impact on Welsh ports.
David Jones, Stakeholder Manager at Blue Gem Wind, explains the scale of the solution needed within our ports to build and deploy infrastructure.
Richard Ballantyne, Chief Executive of British Ports Association commented:
“FLOWMIS is a welcome initiative and we are pleased to see it finally launched. It will certainly help kick off 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.”
The scheme is open to applications until 23:59 (UK BST) Sunday 25 June 2023.
