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25,000 jobs from North East wind?

Up to 25,000 jobs could be created in the North East through a £150m offshore power station.

The European Commission is likely to get the go-ahead for plans to fund a North Sea energy grid which will let energy companies link up thousands of turbines and provide one power source for homes from Ireland to Germany.

It is predicted the North East would benefit with up to 25,000 jobs and millions of pounds in investment as the region pushes ahead on renewable energy. Energy experts predicted the North Sea grid would open the way for a wind revolution in the UK.

Newcastle University’s renewable energy specialist Dermot Roddy, said a previous Government study looking into employment opportunities from wind energy claimed anything up to 50,000 jobs created nationwide, with around half of these coming to the North East.

He said: “Put simply, we in the UK have 40% of all Europe’s wind energy resources and the North East has the skills and technology to exploit that.

“We are, if you like, not very big but very windy and that puts us in a leading position to benefit from this. We know one of the biggest problems with wind energy is the cost of connecting a turbine to the grid, a problem we could solve with this project and open the way for further investment.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .