SeaTwirl participated in panel discussion in Scotland

SeaTwirl’s CEO Peter Laurits was in Glasgow this week for a panel talk about how the supply chain for offshore wind can be sustainably and cost-efficiently scaled up.

The panel was part of a Nordic-Scottish conference arranged by the Nordic Council of Ministers, Business Sweden and the equivalent agencies in Finland, Norway and Denmark. The overarching theme for the conference was Nordic-Scottish cooperation towards a low-carbon society.

Beside Peter and SeaTwirl the panel participants were Isla Robb, founder and CEO of EC20 that works with companies in offshore wind supply chain; Paul O’Brien, Senior Development Manager at DEEPWind that organises companies and ports along the Scottish coast; Tim Burnett, General Manager Market Innovation at Wärtsilä; and Nigel Nawacki, Energy Utility Digital Industry CX Lead CTO at Nokia EU/UK.

Scotland is one the world’s leading nations in the offshore wind buildout generally and in floating wind particularly. Of 20 projects that have been awarded in the big ScotWind programme, 14 are floating. An ambition with Scotwind, besides a large buildout of renewable energy production, is to develop the local supply chain, to make sure that the money that is being invested benefits the local economy.

Both SeaTwirl’s business model and design fit those kinds of ambitions. The company works with a partner model, which means partners for manufacture and assembly can be sourced locally. The design where all the parts and systems that require service are placed close the surface means that maintenance can be performed from local harbours without specialised ships.