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Montrose Port is set to benefit from at least 50 new jobs after the Inch Cape wind farm was named in the UK Government’s Contract for Difference programme.

Located about 15 kilometres from Arbroath, the £3 billion fixed bottom offshore wind farm will have up to 72 turbines and will generate more than 5TWh of renewable electricity each year.

This is enough to produce power to more than 1.1 million homes.

Montrose Port will house the operations and maintenance base for Inch Cape, while the Port of Dundee will be used to assemble the gigantic wind turbines.

The north east of Scotland was a big winner from the government’s latest allocation for Contracts for Difference (CfD).

Inch Cape A and B were named, as was Moray West, Cloiche and Chleansaid and Green Volt — Europe’s first commercial-scale floating wind farm.

Work on the operations base at Montrose Port is due to start in 2025, with local firm Pert Bruce in line to complete the work.

Inch Cape has consent for tip heights of up to 291 metres, roughly 50% higher than the Seagreen project.

Work pre-assembling the 72 turbine blades and towers will come to the Port of Dundee in 2025. Again, bringing at least 50 jobs to the site.

The project is a joint venture between Red Rock Power and ESB Energy and will create 450 jobs overall in its construction phase between Dundee, Montrose and the substation in East Lothian.

Inch Cape project director John Hill said: “The award of the CfD is an important milestone for the project as we continue to work closely with our key suppliers and stakeholders towards achieving financial close later this year.”

The CfD scheme guarantees the price the government will pay per megawatt of electricity produced by the project.

This guarantee makes it easier for renewables projects to receive the investment required to make them a reality.

The latest auction round delivered 131 new green infrastructure projects in its biggest round ever and includes onshore wind, solar, tidal, and offshore wind projects.

A previous “disastrous” allocation round, led by the then-Conservative government, saw no bids from offshore energy projects.

Acting Net Zero and Energy secretary Gillian Martin MSP.Acting cabinet secretary for Net Zero and Energy, Gillian Martin, said: “Scotland’s burgeoning renewables sector has huge potential.

“We need to see even greater project numbers and renewables capacity delivered through the CfD in future and we will be engaging with industry to understand the implications for projects that were not successful in this year’s allocation round.

“We will continue to work with the UK Government to ensure that maximum support, sufficient budget and more longer-term certainty is provided to Scottish projects in Contracts for Difference Allocation Round 7.”

This article appeared in The Courier on 4 September 2024.