The construction of the world’s largest floating wind farm is set to create up to 200 jobs at Kishorn Dry Dock and see the Scottish facility active for the first time in 23 years.
The Kincardine Offshore project will involve the deployment of eight turbines, 15 kilometres off the Kincardineshire coast.
Once completed the wind farm will generate up to 60MW to the grid.
The Kishorn site will be used for the construction of the turbines’ concrete sub-structures.
“The combination of Leith’s on-site quarry at Kishorn with one of the largest dry docks in Western Europe makes the yard an ideal location for manufacturing large concrete structures,” said project director, Carlos Barat.
The dock was last used to construct foundation caissons for the Skye bridge in 1994.
Scottish energy minister Paul Wheelhouse, attended the reopening ceremony and commented: “This agreement paves the way for work to begin at Kishorn Dry Dock for the first time in 25 years, constructing the Kincardine Floating Offshore Windfarm, which will produce enough electricity to power almost 56,000 homes.”
Responding to the news, Lindsay Roberts, senior policy manager at Scottish Renewables, said: “Kishorn’s transformation from an oil and gas hub to renewables reflects a diversification which is being seen across the energy industry as a direct result of continued investment in green energy projects.”
The Docks underwent £450,000 of upgrades to prepare for the new contracts, with £158,932 coming from Highlands and Islands Enterprises (HIE).
“The dock has huge potential, not just for renewables, but for oil, gas and agriculture too” said HIE area manager, Robert Muir. “We very much welcome this milestone today,” he added.
Work will commence in August and the turbines are expected to be in the water by the second quarter of 2018.