With the greatest wind potential of any country in Europe, the UK is a global leader in offshore wind energy, powering up to 7.5 million homes every day. 

 

The world’s largest offshore windfarm, Orsted’s Hornsea Two, is located just 90km off the East Yorkshire coast, with the operations and maintenance hub in Grimsby responsible for the 165 wind turbines and 1.3GW of energy produced. 

 

The offshore farm has the capacity to power up to 1.4 million homes and has allowed Orsted to partner with national charity OnSide to help boost the aspirations of young people through the Horizon Youth Zone, set to be located within the grade II listed West Haven Maltings building in central Grimsby.

 

With plans for Hornsea three, there would be an even larger investment of 231 wind turbines and £8.5 billion into the local and national economy through supply chain investment and the creation of thousands of more high skilled jobs during construction and decades of operation and maintenance. 

 

But recent regressions in government investment have threatened to stifle the offshore wind industry. Just one out of three viable offshore floating wind schemes will be developed under new funding plans while fresh oil and gas drilling licences in the North Sea are approved quickly. 

 

Oil and gas giant Shell were given the financial go-ahead for the development of the Victory gas field in the North Sea, from which 150 million standard cubic feet of gas per day would be produced by the middle of this decade, part of the £185 billion company’s plan to start enough fossil fuel projects by 2025 to add 500,000 barrels a day to their oil and gas production.

 

This isn’t by coincidence as the Prime Minister’s wife, Akshata Murty, owns a £690 million stake in her father’s transnational IT firm Infosys, of which Shell, who made £22 billion in profits in 2023, is a top client. 

 

So, while the UK and Shell simultaneously roll back their net zero and emission reduction targets, with the ninth largest corporate producer of greenhouse gas emissions revising their pledge to cut emissions to now just 15-20%, clean and renewable energy schemes that promise long term investment and stimulation of local economies are suffering.