I am the chief executive officer of a company called EDP Renewables. We are one of the offshore wind developers, but I will try to speak generally rather than just for my own company.
We are the third-largest wind-power developer in the world, and we chose to come to the United Kingdom to develop offshore wind because of the scale of the market; the way the whole process was governed and managed within the UK; and the UK infrastructure.
We saw a couple of benefits immediately. There was a fairly straightforward system of land ownership and control, and sea-bed control, which is—believe me—very complex in some of the regions in which we operate. We broadly welcome the Crown Estate’s role in developing and setting up a process that has enabled us and many other major companies to invest in the UK, and in Scotland in particular.
Secondly, we chose to move and set up our base in Scotland because of support, in particular from the Scottish Government, for renewable power. That is still a key factor in why we are here and why we will set up our entire European and world operations base here in Edinburgh.
One of the problems that we have is that, although we broadly agree with the provisions in the proposal, there will still be powers retained by the UK Government; their not being devolved will not facilitate development of wind power in Scotland. Whether those powers are devolved will be entirely up to the Scottish Government and the UK Government, but we need access to the market in the UK as a whole, as the energy market is still fully integrated.
We welcome the assistance that the Crown Estate has given us so far in developing offshore wind and attempting to meet the requirements of UK Government policy, but we propose that the Scottish Government take control of that as far as it can within Scottish waters. Scotland would then have the whole package and would be able to manage land ownership and appropriate contracts with major developers, including ourselves. That would enable us to deliver energy in the future, which is not the case at present.