Scotland's Marine Economic Statistics 2019

12. Offshore wind

12.1 Introduction

Marine Scotland has been investigating ways to measure the economic activity of offshore wind farms. This is still under development, so it is not included within the overall marine economic figures. Estimates on the employment and turnover for offshore wind are sourced from the Office for National Statistic’s Low Carbon and Renewable Energy Economy Survey. This annual survey collects economic information on the 17 Low Carbon and Renewable Energy sectors, one of which is offshore wind. The accuracy of these survey-based estimates for smaller sectors and country level dis-aggregations, can be variable, which limits the use of some of the data. More information on this including confidence intervals can be found in the Low carbon and renewable energy economy, UK: 2020 bulletin.

Unfortunately, we have been unable to calculate GVA estimates but are continuing to look into this. The employment estimates are also given as full time equivalents rather than headcounts so are not directly comparable to the rest of the publication.

12.2 Key economic points

Scottish offshore wind directly employed an estimated 1,600 full time equivalent (FTE) staff in 2019. It generated 3,161 GWh of electricity, 10% of all renewable energy generation in Scotland and had an estimated turnover of £603 million in 2019, accounting for 0.25% of overall Scottish turnover.

12.3 Offshore wind farms – trends

From 2018 to 2019, the turnover from the Scottish offshore wind farm industry (adjusted to 2019 prices) increased by 125%, while the longer term trend from 2014 to 2019 showed that turnover (adjusted to 2019 prices) increased by 480%.

The employee FTE increased by 129% between 2014 and 2019. This increase is not statistically significant and could be due to sampling variability rather than a real change. See Annex B section 18.11 for more details.

Data shown as ‘c’ are confidential as they are based on a small number of businesses.