AN internationally acclaimed authority on the economics of the energy industry is supporting plans for the 11-turbine offshore wind farm project, which has outraged US tycoon Donald Trump.
Mr Trump has launched an outspoken campaign against the Scottish Government's green energy policy in the wake of the plans for the £230 million European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre (EOWDC), a facility for developers to test new designs, off the Aberdeenshire coast near his £750m golf development.
He has ordered work to stop on the planned 950 holiday homes and 500 houses until the Scottish Government decides on the plan, claiming that no sane developer would build a hotel that looked into what is "essentially an industrial plant".
However, Professor Alex Kemp, a globally recognised expert on the North Sea oil and gas industry and director of Aberdeen University's Centre for Research in Energy Economics and Finance, spoke on the project for the first time yesterday.
He said: "Research and development [R&D] is integral to the successful advancement of Scotland and the UK's renewable energy industry.
"It facilitates robust solutions and leads to wider, long-term benefits such as the acceleration and enhancement of cost reduction and increased productivity. All this should subsequently improve the national financing of renewables. In the longer term, it could reduce the need for subsidies.
"The EOWDC test centre and associated R&D facilities address a fundamental gap in the offshore renewables sector for researching, developing and demonstrating new innovations. It also has the potential to attract new entrants into offshore renewables and make it a more competitive industry."
He said it could be a real Scottish success story, adding: "The EOWDC has the potential to put Scotland and the UK on the global renewables map as leaders in offshore wind."
Mr Kemp will be part of a panel discussing the EOWDC at the All Energy 2012 conference at the Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre this afternoon.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article