Multimillion pound investments planned on back on offshore wind boom

The “conceptual” plans - revealed in a Government and industry-backed strategic review - include filling in a dock in Hull to create a staging area where wind farm components can be stored before being shipped out to the North Sea.

Details were published in a report which highlighted the boost the burgeoning sector could give economically deprived parts of the UK.

ABP which is investing £310m with Siemens in Green Port Hull, the new blade factory and staging quayside at Alexandra Dock, is considering infilling Albert Dock, which is currently used for timber and dry bulk shipments.

The proposals to create a 22 hectare site with a deepwater riverside quay could take 18 months to go through the planning process, with a build time of another 18 months and a price tag of around £60m.

In Immingham ABP is planning to make up for declining coal shipments by creating a staging quay for turbines by infilling behind the existing quay at its bulkhandling facility and using land currently used to store coal. The site improvements and first 200m of quayside would cost around £80m.

The review was led by Offshore Wind Industry Council co-chair Benj Sykes of Dong Energy, which is developing the vast Hornsea windfarms, and involved eight other developers including SSE, RWE and Eon. It concluded existing ports could deal with demand which could see total installed offshore capacity increase from five gigawatts (GW) to 20GW by 2030.

Dong Energy confirmed this week it was pulling out of a marine energy hub at North Killingholme.

An ABP spokesman said the firm was “continually looking at ways it can respond to market demand and assist the Government in its achieving its objectives, and the planned investments on the north and south bank of the Humber are testament to this.”