A new state-owned energy company tasked with significantly expanding the generation of green power is to be based in Aberdeen, Sir Keir Starmer has confirmed.
The Prime Minister used his speech at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool to announce that Granite City will be the home of Great British Energy.
The UK Government said it would draw on Aberdeen’s “world-leading engineering expertise to kickstart a UK-wide clean energy revolution”.
An interim chief executive will soon be appointed to take the lead on launching the new company and building its base in the city.
Once GB Energy is up and running, two other sites will open in Edinburgh and Glasgow.
North Sea industry leaders welcomed the expected announcement but warned Sir Keir that the oil and gas industry still needed support.
The Tories also claimed the company was a “gimmick” that aimed to “distract attention” from Sir Keir’s previous announcement that no further North Sea oil and gas exploration licences would be issued.
GB Energy will not supply power to homes but will invest in green energy schemes across the UK and help support Scottish industries such as offshore wind.
It is to be backed by £8.3 billion of taxpayers’ money, with any profits being returned to the public purse.
Labour ministers argue this will help protect households against future spikes in energy prices caused by fossil fuel markets, as happened following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Sir Keir told his party’s conference: “We said, GB Energy, our publicly owned national champion, the vehicle will drive forward our mission on clean energy, we said it belonged in Scotland, and it does. But the truth is, it could only really ever be based in one place in Scotland.
“So today, I can confirm that the future of British energy will be powered as it has been for decades, by the talent and skills of the working people in the Granite City with GB Energy based in Aberdeen.”
Juergen Maier, the company’s chairman, said: “Great British Energy’s headquarters in Aberdeen will be a starting point for the company in its work to back clean energy projects across the whole of Scotland and the UK.
“We will use this base to rapidly scale up this publicly owned, operationally independent company and start to engage with investors and communities and build supply chains across the UK.”
GB Energy has launched a partnership with the Crown Estate, which oversees the £16 billion of land and seabed belonging to the monarch.
The UK Government has said this will help cut the long delays that can be experienced while trying to get large infrastructure projects, such as wind farms and transmission lines, built.
Sir Ian Wood, one of the North Sea’s most respected businessmen, welcomed the announcement.
He said: “The case for locating the company in the North East of Scotland, as the Prime Minister said, is irresistible given it is home to the largest cluster of energy supply chain companies in the UK and in close proximity to a massive pipeline of renewable projects spanning offshore wind, green hydrogen and carbon capture and storage.”
David Whitehouse, chief executive of North Sea producers’ trade body Offshore Energies UK, said: “Where GB Energy is located is important but what really matters is what it does.
“Success will be built on partnerships with industry unlocking the private sector investment needed to achieve the homegrown energy transition and economic growth we all want.”
Gillian Martin, the SNP’s acting net zero secretary, also welcomed the announcement.
However, Douglas Lumsden, the Scottish Tories’ net zero secretary, said: “Keir Starmer’s announcement will do almost nothing to compensate for the hammer-blow Labour’s policies on oil and gas have already delivered to the North East.”
He added: “People in the North East will see this gimmick for what it is – a totally inadequate consolation prize wheeled out to distract attention from the danger Labour’s policies pose to Scottish jobs, our economy and energy security.”
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