Jun 21 - Scotsman, The

The gigantic structures tower 300 feet tall, weigh 1,000 tonnes and have blades that span an area the size of the London Eye. These five-megawatt wind turbines are among the largest in the world and are precisely the type of supersized structures designed to be built offshore.

Over the next decade, about 6,000 of these enormous machines are due to spring up around the UK to help meet the European Union target of providing a fifth of all energy from renewable sources by 2020.

Two potential sites for such offshore wind farms have been identified off the coast of Scotland - one off the Firth of Forth and the other in the Moray Firth.

The companies preparing to step up to the challenge of building the clusters of huge turbines predict that they are about to go through a period of enormous business expansion.

Henning von Barsewisch is managing director of the Scottish branch of German firm REpower. His company builds the enormous five- megawatt turbine structures that von Barsewisch calls "big beasts".

In the current climate of high demand for green energy, the company is currently experiencing such dramatic growth that the only difficulty is keeping up with the demand.

REpower is about to open a new factory in Bremerhaven, north Germany, which will employ 170 staff working three shifts a day in a bid to build 80 of the offshore turbines a year.

Von Barsewisch said: "It's big business and the industry is very much changing from beards and sandals to being a proper industry with significant investments with customers who have very strong balance sheets.

"Renewables used to be more PR and marketing than something to be taken seriously. Now it has become very much a focal point. We have moved from being on the fringes to being a key element of the energy industry."

He thinks that wind power offers huge future employment opportunities in Scotland. The Scottish arm of his firm has grown from two members of staff four years ago to 45 today.

"Recruiting the calibre of people can be a challenge," he said. "It's got to do with the number of graduate engineers. We are increasingly competing with other industries for a limited pool of graduate engineers."

Despite the limited numbers of available workers, von Barsewisch believes it is an attractive area in which to work.

"You are doing something meaningful," he said. "You can pay your mortgage and put food on the table, but you are also doing something worthwhile for the world as a whole."

David Rowen has seen the benefits that working in the wind industry can bring. Eight years ago he owned a struggling ship- building business on the south coast of England. One day, he was asked to build a turbine on the ship-building site.

"Suddenly my company transformed," he said. "It went to 24-hour working overnight."

Now Rowen is managing director of PowerBlades, a company that is building a new factory in Bremerhaven the length of two football pitches to supply the huge blades for REpower's turbines. He predicts that PowerBlades will be employing more than 500 people within two years.

The new wind industry is transforming Bremerhaven, a small former fishing town. At a topping-out ceremony for the factory, local dignitaries showered the company with praise for bringing jobs to the town.

Mr von Barsewisch thinks the wind industry has similar potential to transform areas of Scotland and he believes that it could have seen huge growth come to the Isle of Lewis, where earlier this year plans for Europe's largest wind farm were turned down. His belief that Scotland has huge potential to harness wind for its energy - much more so than Germany - is based on the undeniable fact that the country benefits from having rather a lot of the one crucial ingredient ...wind.

"The wind regimes in Scotland are something that we would love to have in Germany," said Mr von Barsewisch. "What's bad in Scotland is a good site in Germany."

Despite having little wind, Germany already has ten times more installed wind power than the UK. In north Germany up to 30 per cent of energy is now provided by wind.

"If we are serious about the EU's 2020 targets, Britain will have to have at least as much wind energy as Germany does today, or probably more," said Mr

von Barsewisch, who believes that the planning system in the UK is standing in the way of progress.

"The British planning system is one of the most challenging worldwide," he said. "It's very difficult to get a project through.

"In Germany it's a less ambiguous system with clearer guidelines. The turnaround is a matter of months rather than years.

"It's very much about political support that's been available for renewable energy. Germany has always been very keen."

Scottish energy minister Jim Mather said: "The Scottish Government has an unwavering commitment to harness Scotland's vast array of potentially cheap, renewable energy sources.

"We have already determined 13 projects, including approval for the second and third largest wind farms in Scotland. This is more than double the number of determinations between April 2006 and April 2007.

"We are well on the way to meeting our ambitious target to generate 50 per cent of Scotland's electricity demand from renewables by 2020. And emerging technologies will play their part - we are investing in the full range of clean, green energy, from wave and tide to biomass."

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