Fraserburgh base for Moray East windfarm is officially opened
The Fraserburgh operations and maintenance base for the Moray East Offshore Windfarm has been officially opened by the Scottish Government’s Cabinet Secretary for Energy, Net Zero and Transport, Michael Matheson.
Leaders of global energy companies – Ocean Winds (an ENGIE and EDPR joint-venture company), EDPR, and DGL – also attended the ceremony.
The 950 MW Moray East windfarm is currently the largest operating in Scotland. It was developed by Moray Offshore Windfarm East Ltd, a joint-venture involving Ocean Winds, Diamond Green Limited and CTG.
The O&M base in Fraserburgh provides the facilities for the day-to-day running of the windfarm, warehousing for spare parts and is home to the Service Operations Vessel ‘Alba’. The vessel spends two-week periods at sea with a crew which undertakes planned works on the offshore infrastructure.
The O&M base will directly employ around 100 local people in Fraserburgh.
The windfarm began generating power in June, with the last turbine being installed last month.
Mr Matheson said: “Offshore wind will play a significant role in our energy transition and last year we set out our ambition to install up to 11GW of offshore wind capacity by 2030 – enough to power over eight million homes.
“The Moray East Offshore Wind Farm will take us one step closer to realising this ambition and I am delighted to officially open the Operations and Maintenance base at Fraserburgh Harbour. This base is another important step in ensuring our communities benefit from new high-valued skilled jobs and associated economic opportunities as we achieve our net zero ambitions.”
Enrique Alvarez, Project Director of Moray East, said: “The O&M base is the land-based hub for the massive offshore infrastructure of Moray East. I would like to thank everyone who has been involved with delivering the project – the communities and organisations that have supported its development, our suppliers and our staff.
“At a time when security of energy supply is front and centre of the agenda, Moray East is coming on stream with a secure supply of low cost, low carbon energy from domestic renewable resources.”