Guernsey has ‘one shot’ at wind farm
PROGRESS on a wind farm off the coast of Guernsey is starting to move ‘at a pace’, one of the deputies behind it has said.
Speaking before a breakfast seminar planned for Wednesday this week, Deputy Carl Meerveld said things were moving on the topic and restated his claim that a wind farm would raise more money for the island each year than a goods and services tax.
Government should be looking for opportunities to make money said Deputy Meerveld, a member of the States offshore wind sub-committee, and he believed a wind farm could do this.
‘If this Assembly and the next Assembly is minded, I would hope, with a good wind, we can have contracts signed and tens of millions coming in by the end of the next term,’ he said.
He said that experts were going to be in the island next week to discuss draft financial figures.
It is expected that plans for licensing an offshore wind farm are due to be debated by the States early next year.
There is also going to be a public breakfast seminar on the topic on Wednesday which will feature a panel including Deputy Meerveld, a representative of Guernsey Electricity, offshore wind industry pioneer Huub den Rooijen and Dr Mark Leybourne, co-founder of CI-based offshore wind developer, Dyna Energy.
Dr Leybourne has already worked with Jersey and said that after seeing things starting to progress in that island he felt compelled to get involved in Guernsey, too.
‘This is a great opportunity for the island – for both islands,’ he said.
‘It could be done badly and it could be very easy for either island to give this just to a big, multinational oil major, and the islands won’t get very much from it. But I’d like to see it done well, because both islands, I think, have one shot at this.’
Dyna had already come up with the names of companies which it thought would be a good fit to take on wind farm projects in the islands. Dr Leybourne’s idea would be for the company to act as its local representative at first, engaging with the population and the government.
‘It’s going to be hard for the islands to trust a big party to come in and do something on this. I think that part of our role is to try to build that trust and say that the islands are going to be represented and get something out of this.’
The seminar opens at 7.30am, with the presentation from 8am. Admission is free but anyone planning to go along is asked to register at Eventbrite – bit.ly/3ACO5Uj
