Marine / Fishing and floating wind farms ‘not able to co-exist’, industry chief says
FLOATING wind farms and the fishing industry are “simply not able to co-exist”, a senior fishing chief has claimed.
Plans for giant offshore infrastructure – which include two proposed projects off Shetland – are threatening to destroy fishing as an industry, Scottish Fishermen’s Federation (SFF) chief Elspeth Macdonald has said.
She made the comments at SFF’s annual dinner on Thursday night, which was attended by Scottish first minister John Swinney.
Macdonald told guests at Edinburgh’s Scotsman Hotel that, despite best efforts, fishing and floating wind turbines will not be possible together.
“The government risks sleepwalking into a scenario where the ambition to lead the world on floating offshore wind means that it decimates or destroys our world-class food production,” she said.
“There have been very many meetings and very many words, but we now need action – action from government to support and protect our sector because be in no doubt, it is at very serious risk from the planned expansion of floating offshore wind.”
Plans are in place for two major floating wind farms to the east of Shetland – the 500MW Stoura project, led by ESB, and the much larger 2.3GW Arven submission from Ocean Winds and Mainstream Renewable Power.
ESB director Dr Cian Desmond said last month that its team was “working closely with the fisheries organisations, adding it was “all about understanding what the impact is going to be of what we’re proposing”.
However Shetland Fishermen’s Association executive officer Daniel Lawson said fishermen were “very, very concerned” about the offshore wind projects being lined up.
He said the north half of the Stoura site is in “prime” whitefish and pelagic grounds.
Meanwhile Arven previously said it will “continue to engage with representatives of fisheries associations and organisations”, in order to “corroborate baseline data, gain insight into fishing methods used, understand the views of fisheries stakeholders and discuss approaches to mitigation and monitoring”.
Macdonald said everyone understood the need for energy transition, and a more sustainable way to power the economy for the future.
“But we also need to eat, and we know that fishing is far more efficient in terms of greenhouse gas emissions than nearly all other forms of food production,” she added.
“I fully believe that this is one of, if not the biggest challenge we currently face as an industry.”
Macdonald encouraged the Scottish Government to do “everything that it can to make sure our industry is not an accidental casualty of floating offshore wind.”
It comes as ESB and UHI Shetland yesterday (Thursday) announced they had signed a memorandum of understanding which will see them collaborate on work for the Stoura offshore wind farm.
The main areas of focus will be education, data sharing, research and long term environmental monitoring, ESB said.
The agreement was signed during the recent public engagement session about the Stoura windfarm at the Shetland Museum.
Dr Desmond said one of the central focuses of the memorandum would be to “replicate the enormous success” of the Shetland Oil Terminal Environmental Advisory Group (SOTEAG).
And UHI Shetland chief Jane Lewis said the college would be looking to help ESB work towards the Scottish Government’s climate action targets.
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