54 - Modo Selects - Floating wind with Kerry Hayes (Project Development Manager @ Simply Blue Group)

We're talking about floating offshore.

Floating offshore wind.

So what's all that about?

It's much deeper water, so therefore it lends itself very nicely to this new technology.

But I'm going to say a turbine on a boat here--

Whereas we're looking at floating wind is breaking totally new ground.

What's the opportunity here?

The opportunity is huge, globally. There's hundreds and hundreds of gigawatts that we could deploy here.

I'm going to ask a stupid question now. I can't believe it's taken me so long to ask. How does a floating wind turbine not fall over?

It's a catalyst, I would say, for floating wind in the Celtic Sea.

So you construct it onshore, almost at a shipyard and then tow it out.

KERRY HAYES: Yeah.

Nuts. Absolutely nuts.

Yeah. My favorite fact about a 15-megawatt turbine is that one rotation of a turbine can power a house for two days.

PRODUCER: Hey, everybody. Izzy, the Modo podcast producer here. Because of holidays and classes this week, I'm introducing today's episode. This one is a Modo Selects.

And we are revisiting a conversation from last year with Kerry Hayes from Simply Blue group. In it, her and Q talk about floating wind.

Kerry is a massive advocate and hugely passionate about floating wind and how it can be used to open up a load of the ocean's resources.

As Q would say, don't forget to hit like, subscribe, and all of those other good buttons. It really means the world to us. Let's jump in.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Hello, Kerry. Hello. Right.

Welcome to the podcast. Welcome to Modo. Welcome to Birmingham. We did just mention--

it's probably worth saying for the podcast--

there's a lot of shouty men outside doing a stag do. So if you're listening to the podcast and you can hear testosterone in your ears, then it's not us. Well, it's certainly not me, anyway.

Certainly not me. No, lacking in testosterone. And Kerry Hayes, why are we talking?

Why are we talking?

Who are you? And where are you from?

So who am I?

My name is Kerry Hayes, as you just said. And I work for a company called Simply Blue Group.

And Simply Blue Group is an early stage blue economy developer. And by that, I mean we get involved in lots of good projects that use our oceans. So my main area of focus is around floating offshore wind, but the company does lots of cool things in aquaculture and sustainable aquaculture.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: Aquaculture?

Yes.

That's a cool new word. I've never had that on the podcast before.

So lots of stuff there. We're doing some stuff around seaweed and trying to grow that more sustainably as a food source.

We do work--

we do some wave energy stuff. We do all sorts of things. And we're constantly evolving.

But our main ethos is doing really good stuff with the oceans. And yeah, so I work on our floating wind side of things.

I've been with the company since August of last year. And before that, I worked with a company called Regen, who I think Modo are familiar with.

Yeah, props to Regen. We love Regen. Fighting the good fight. We love them.

They are. They're a brilliant team of people doing exactly as you say, fighting the good fight.

So I was there with them for 10 years. I started as an eight week intern. And poor old Merlin at Regen couldn't get rid of me.

That seems to happen quite a lot, right?

Yeah.

It's a great way to bring people into the sector, though--

to start up as an intern and then work your way up and earn your stripes.

But for that reason, I'm in floating wind now. My background, I did an oceanography degree and then a master's in marine renewable energy.

So I like to say--

and I've never been tested on this or had my theory disproved, anyway. I like to think I'm one of the few people, or one of the earliest adopters of people who actually studied to do what I'm doing now, rather than--

lots of people in the energy sector have come from--

Bandwagons.

Everyone's jumping on this ocean.

What did you say?

What's the word that we just said for the first time? Ocean--

Aquaculture.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: Aquaculture bandwagon, yeah.

Lots of people moving around from different things. So I actually specifically wanted to get into this. So I was at Regen doing all sorts of stuff around floating offshore wind, initially, because Regen was one of the first companies to identify the opportunities for floating offshore wind in areas such as the Celtic Sea. And I'll explain what I mean by the Celtic Sea in a moment.

So I did quite a lot of work with them on all sorts of stuff there, bounced around a bit--

did some stuff on heat networks, did some innovative solar stuff. I left Regen for a time and went to do wave and tidal development. Didn't quite go to plan--

unfortunately, I did get made redundant after a couple of--

Oh, sorry. I wasn't laughing at it not going to plan. I was laughing at--

just tidal's hard, isn't it?

Tidal is really hard.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: There's so many smart people trying to make that thing work.

It is hard.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: And it's very tricky.

And I think it will happen.

And I hold confidence in the smart people, like you say. But it is tricky. There's some really complex conditions that need to come together to make it work. And by definition, if you're putting a turbine out there to extract tidal energy, that's in some of the harshest conditions and stuff. So it's a challenge.

So then I went back to Regen after a year of doing a few other little bits and bobs. Regen took me back. And so I was there for another five years before I left to join Simply Blue Group, who I had been keeping an eye on for quite some time because they are--

we are, I guess, now that I work for them--

a really exciting company who are entrepreneurial.

Startup mentality. So just flying off in different directions to do all good things. And everything's mission-driven.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: How big is Simply Blue?

Yeah. So last time I checked--

and I say that because it changes all the time--

I think we're sitting at just over 60 people now. When I joined, I think I was employee number 45, 46, something like that. So that was August last year. So we've had quite a rapid expansion since then.

Before the pandemic started, I think we were around 8, 9, 10 people. So the vast majority of the expansion has been since the start of 2020.

We are based all over the world now. So I work out of our Cornwall office, which is in Newquay, which is a great place to have an office.

And I am recruiting and desperately trying to recruit. So if anyone wants to come work.

Here comes the plug. Yeah, so if you've got a shark fish hanging around your neck, then perhaps you'd like the job.

If you like going to work in flip-flops and going for Surf Wednesdays, then I am trying to recruit.

No, so I'm in our Cornwall office. And we've got offices all over the place. So we've got one up in Scotland, we've got one over in Pembroke in Wales.

We've got three or four offices in Ireland now--

in Dublin, Cork, and a place called Ardmore, which is where one of our founders is from--

a very beautiful part of the country.

And then we've also got an office in Oregon, in America. And we've now got people being employed all over the world. Where we're looking at new markets, we're picking people to lead those markets and opening up new offices.

OK. So Simply Blue is everywhere, like the ocean, right? And so you guys develop lots of stuff. And we're going to talk about a specific type of offshore wind today, right? We're talking about floating offshore wind. So what's all that about?

Yeah. So floating offshore wind, it essentially uses existing turbines that you will recognize from any offshore wind farm in the country or off the country, actually, more specifically.

But it uses a different type of mechanism to attach to the seabed--

to attach the turbines to the seabed. So whereas all of the turbines that you would recognize around the coast--

pretty much all of them are monopiled, which means they're drilled into the seabed.

That has some limitations to it, in that you can't really drill much more than somewhere about 30-40 meters. The reason I'm hesitant there is there's some debate in the industry about how deep you can go with monopiles. But broadly speaking, 30-40 meters. You've got to your limit there.

So like a pile in the ground, on the shore.

KERRY HAYES: Yeah.

You put a big pile in the ground offshore. Just there's a lot of water on.

There's a lot of water on top. And you've got to drill quite deep. And it can be a bit more challenging, environmentally. Clearly, no project gets built unless it's gone through a rigorous environmental impact assessment and has achieved its development consent order. So there's lots of checks in place to make sure that they aren't causing unnecessary harm to the environment. However, by definition, if you're going to piling into the seabed, it's likely to be slightly more disruptive.

And so at the moment--

sorry, let's come back to monopile for a second. So we're talking about big bits of metal and concrete going deep, deep, deep into the seabed and putting a turbine on top. And that's the current way of doing it.

KERRY HAYES: Yeah.

And there's plenty of reasons why that is great, but also might not be so good for--

well, you can't go that deep, right? And also it's not particularly good for the seabed. So then someone came along and said--

I want to say a turbine on a boat here.

No, but someone said, why don't we make this thing float? So how does that work?

Essentially, this isn't new--

doing floating structures. The oil and gas industry has been doing it for years and years and years. So it's essentially borrowing ideas from the oil and gas sector. And instead of having the monopile solutions, as we said, you'll have--

there's many different ways of doing it. But you'll have some form of structure where the turbine placed on it that then is anchored to the seabed using drag embedments. So it catches into the seabed rather than it being--

Drag embedment?

Drag embedment, yeah. And I'm not an engineer, so don't push me on exactly how it works. But you'll have chains that come off the platform and are then moored to the seabed using drag embedment anchors. So it's much more environmentally friendly. And you can go much deeper.

OK. So a big floating bit of metal.

And then anchored in multiple places to the seabed. And then you stick a turbine on top.

Stick a turbine on top.

It's really easy. I don't know what my engineering colleagues are whinging about.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: But it must move about a little bit, right?

Yeah. There is some movement in it, because it's not rigidly fixed to that. And it creates some challenges. And there's lots of innovation opportunities there to ensure that the dynamic cables can handle that motion. Although there's quite a lot of motion with fixed projects anyway. But there's lots of innovation.

That's true, right? So on the seabed, you've got all these cables. And the tide moves them around anyway. So even interconnectors sometimes can--

Can shift off. Yeah, absolutely.

So we got into floating wind because essentially one of my founders, Sam Roch-Perks was particularly passionate about wave energy initially, and really wanted to make that work. And we still do wave now.

But he also was looking at the Celtic Sea, which is the second time I've mentioned it. And I still haven't explained exactly where it is. And given we're recording this in Birmingham, which is nowhere near the sea, I probably should explain the Celtic Sea.

No, no. Keep teasing it. What on Earth is the Celtic--

It's a sea full of Celts.

So he spotted that the Celtic Sea was this opportunity where we don't have any floating offshore wind, but we don't have any offshore wind in the Celtic Sea. Whereas in the North Sea, there's this huge amount of offshore wind deployed.

And it's much deeper water. So therefore, it lends itself very nicely to this new technology.

So it's not on the east side, it's on the west side.

It's on the west side. So it's the bit of sea that goes from Cornwall, covers the Devon coast, and up to about halfway up Ireland, and covers Wales in there as well. So it's like a backward C shape on the west side of the country.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: So below the Irish Sea.

Yeah, below the Irish Sea.

I worked in the Irish Sea for a while, but in gas. That was the olden days.

KERRY HAYES: It's OK. You've converted now.

Yeah, I've converted. So it's below the Irish Sea.

KERRY HAYES: Yeah.

I'd be interested to know where it comes in a shipping forecast. But I'm sure someone can tell us in the comments. And that's a particularly deep part of the sea, but particularly good for wind--

very windy.

It's very windy. It's got very constant wind speeds there. And it is deep--

it's deeper water. But most of the oceans in the world are deeper than the east coast of the UK, which is where most of the fixed turbines that we've got are, which is around up to the 30-40 meter mark. But most of the world oceans--

I think it's 80% of the world's oceans are deeper than that.

OK. So let's just sit and check this for a second. So the North Sea, for example--

we've got chains everywhere.

KERRY HAYES: Sorry.

No, that's fine.

KERRY HAYES: I'm bashing then.

North Sea. So we're saying that these monopile, the current way that it's done--

monopile in the North Sea. The North Sea is quite--

the bits that they're on is only up to 40 meters. In some case, it's 10-20 meters, right?

KERRY HAYES: Yeah. They're pretty close to the shore and not very deep, yeah.

So for anybody who's listening to this, I'm not going to tell you what 10 meters is, right? Or if it's 20 meters. But it's not that deep.

KERRY HAYES: It's not very deep.

And so what's the what's the limit of what you can do with a monopile?

With a monopile, I think up to--

there is debate as to where that frontier changes between between a monopile and a floating turbine. I think I'm fairly confident to say up to 40 meters would be your max--

30-40. Somebody will correct me if I'm wrong.

And that means you've got all this ocean out there you can't put these things in. So hence floating.

KERRY HAYES: Hence floating.

And so we'll come back to the Celtic Sea, because it's so on topic at the moment. So the Celtic Sea--

how many wind turbines can you get out there? How much wind energy is there to get?

A good question. And there are lots of estimates out there. I think the offshore renewable energy catapult, I'd reckon that you could get 50 gigawatts out there. We haven't yet proven that by starting with some of these projects, but potentially up to 50 gigawatts could be realizable.

And just for context on that, we've got--

I think we're on about 12 gigawatts of installed capacity around the UK at the moment. And that's taken us since the early 2000s to get to where we are now. So to consider that we could have many times that in the Celtic Sea is pretty amazing.

At the moment, people are--

so the way some people do delivers projects is by forming joint ventures. So we decide that we want to do a project. We do a lot of the early work to make sure that we think it's deliverable. And then we join up with a big strategic that can help us do this.

So we can bring the entrepreneurial, local angle to the project.

And then we bring somebody in. And one of our joint ventures, of which we've got many, is with TotalEnergies. And we've got the Blue Gem Wind partnership. Now, the Blue Gem Partnership has got a seabed lease from the Crown Estate to deliver a 100-megawatt project. And that's for the Erebus Project.

So I split my time at Simply Blue on our pipeline of new opportunities, where I work entirely for Simply Blue Group, and then I'm the Policy Engagement Manager for the Blue Gem Project, where we're trying to deliver the Erebus Project. So that project is going to--

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: Two hats.

I work two hats. But that project, while 100 megawatts doesn't sound like very much, given that fixed wind projects are in development for well over a gig, when it's built, it'll be the biggest floating wind project in the world. We're hoping to be building out, constructing in 2026.

And that is going to be--

it's the catalyst, I would say, for floating wind in the Celtic Sea. So we got that lease a couple of years ago through the hard work and determination of my founders and the early team. And that kickstarted the leasing processes that are going to come forward in the Celtic Sea.

So you guys, by 2026, are going to get 100 megawatts of floating wind turbines in the Celtic Sea.

KERRY HAYES: Yeah, off Wales.

Off Wales. Chained to the seabed and operational.

Can we get an idea of scale on these? So does floating mean you can go bigger? Or is that a misconception?

I think we're looking at the same turbines that the fixed industry is looking at the moment. So our Erebus Project is going to use turbines of about 15 megawatts, which is--

Oh my days.

KERRY HAYES: They're huge.

I thought 3.6's were big.

Yeah, these are huge turbines. They're bigger than the Gherkin, when they're in London--

or maybe just about the same size. I forget exactly.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: It's such a shame that they're offshore and people can't go and walk up to them and get an idea of the scale, because--

It is. They are huge.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: Mammoth.

Absolutely massive. My favorite fact about a 15-megawatt turbine is that one rotation of a turbine can power a house for two days.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: Wow.

Which is pretty phenomenal. It just makes sense to build these things big, offshore. They're further away from the coast, so they're much more friendly from a stakeholder perspective, because they're much harder to see. They're in deeper water.

People on golf courses can't complain. Oh, dear. I've got to look at a wind turbine.

Anyway.

So you can go big. You can go big, like fixed--

let's get some parlance right. Do we call them fixed wind?

Fixed wind or fixed bottom.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: Fixed bottom, right.

I often flip between terms and call it traditional offshore wind.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: Trad wind.

All sorts of--

trad wind. Let's not make that a thing.

So you can go big just like those guys. Does this mean that there's a lot more wind power available to us in as an island than typically? Or is the continental shelf around the UK pretty big and actually most of it is OK, is fixed?

Is high wind for other countries or is high wind for us? Not high wind.

Ooh, high wind.

We'll talk about that in a minute. Is floating wind for other countries?

It's for everybody. Floating wind is for everyone. There's a massive opportunity, globally. Most of the world's oceans are deep, really deep.

And require--

if they want to make the most of offshore wind, then it's going to require floating wind. So it absolutely suits the western seaboard of the UK around the Celtic Sea, as I said.

I haven't mentioned Ireland. Ireland is in very deep water as well. We're an Irish headquartered company. And so it will be of no surprise that we have projects that we're looking at off Ireland--

different joint venture to the one I'm involved in. That's with Shell.

And the Irish are killing it. They're like, right, we're going 100% renewable tomorrow.

KERRY HAYES: Yeah, it's a lot of ambition.

I love it.

It's challenging. They've got similar challenges to it. And we can talk about challenges in a moment. But they have challenges to the physical workings as well. But yeah, they're a committed bunch and want to see some big projects coming up.

But there's all sorts of parts around the world. We've just announced a joint venture, or announced projects, rather, in Sweden.

We're looking at all sorts of other areas. We've submitted an application for a project in Poland. We've got a team over in the States who are looking at opportunities.

By the time we finish recording, there will probably be another announcement from us in another market that we're looking at, because there's so much opportunity for floating wind. It really is global. And it's a very exciting time to be part of it.

Absolutely.

KERRY HAYES: They're responsible for leasing the seabed. And we as developers are all readying ourselves now for those of us that don't have leases or want more leases.

We've got a 100-megawatt lease. We're about to be going in for a big 4 gigawatt leasing round.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: Woah.

Last time I checked, there were now 21 developers who are wanting a piece of that 4 gigawatts. And the intention is--

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: Does that have a round number?

Well, this--

yeah. I don't know if we would call it round four or if we would call it round one, because it's--

so the fixed offshore wind projects have gone up around one to three, with some extensions mixed in there.

So I know there was a round four. Round four has already been, so round five. This could technically be round five or it could be a new one, because it's the first officially dedicated to floating wind.

They've been splitting rounds recently, haven't they? Four and then a letter.

Who knows how you would split this up. What about investors? Because in the world of batteries--

we always come back to--

we're battery geeks.

It's only very recently, in the grand scheme of things, that investors have got comfortable with the technology around batteries. And now it's easy-peasy, everyone's--

I say easy-peasy. I'm being silly, but it's straightforward.

Investors generally know what these things are. They get it. It's all right.

But the floating wind thing--

are investors comfortable with that as a technology yet? Or are they a little bit unsure?

I think if they're not comfortable, they're very quickly getting comfortable. As I said, we form lots of joint ventures with people who've got lots of experience doing this sort of stuff. They're doing deep water offshore projects, like Total and Shell and another one with Orsted. So people who do already understand this are comfortable with these sorts of projects.

We're seeing lots of new entrants coming into the market and we're seeing lots of diversification from other sectors as well. So I think people are comfortable. Because it is new, but it's not new. The turbines are the same. They've been being developed for a long while.

And there is a lot of work to do on the foundation--

the platform, if you like. And there's still lots and lots of different types of floating platform out there. But again, the oil and gas sector have been doing deepwater floating projects for some time, so it's not completely new. It's just putting two bits together to create something.

So I think there is confidence.

I know CFDs are very important to wind, right?

KERRY HAYES: Yeah, CFD.

So CFD--

sorry, CFDs, which stand for--

KERRY HAYES: Contracts For Difference.

Contracts For Difference. And this is basically a mechanism so that--

I'll actually let you explain. Bridget did a really great job, so you've got to beat Bridget in less words. What is a CFD?

A CFD essentially is a way of giving certainty to the project developer that you are going to get a certain amount of money for your energy that you've generated. So it's done on straight prices.

It's done in an auction. It's a competitive process.

And it essentially promises you a price that you're going to get topped up to from where the wholesale price is. And if you go over that, you have to give it back. So you're going back into the public good.

But it means that you can guarantee a certain revenue for your project. So it's important from a certainty point of view.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: And will CFD strike prices for floating wind be higher or lower than fixed--

than trad wind?

Yeah, trad wind. Yes, they will be higher. And I'm glad you've asked the question, because it's a really important point, actually. And it's something that those of us who are in the sector are talking about all the time.

Just yesterday, I was at an event. And we were having a coffee. And about eight of us just talking about the challenges with the CFD here and the perception of the CFD publicly and in other parts of the renewable sector. Because what's happened with fixed offshore wind is the strike price has got lower and lower and lower and lower and lower.

And projects were originally looking at 155 pounds per megawatt hour in the first round. We're now down at something like 39 pounds per megawatt hour. And it's dropped really quite rapidly.

So cool. Sorry.

KERRY HAYES: It is cool.

Other wind types are available. That's impressive to get below 40 quid.

It is. Is fantastic.

There are lots of reasons that's happened. So fixed offshore wind is being developed and deployed.

The first round in the UK was in 2000. We're now in 2022, so there's been 22 years there of development. The sites are shallow water, so that reduces your cost. You're not going as far offshore.

You're not operating in deep--

It's not apples for apples, Yeah.

I would say it's not apples to apples. And I think where we're looking at these new areas, like the Celtic sea, which is where--

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: We love the Celtic sea on this podcast right now. Celtic Sea is killing it.

It's where I do most--

it's all my personal focus. While the company's got lots, that's my area. But the supply chain isn't developed there yet. The port infrastructure still needs to come along.

And why that's important is when you do your CFD application, you're trying to get your costs as low as possible.

And your costs are driven by your supply chain and by your installation methodologies and where you have to tow your turbines in from. If you are not able to make the best use of local supply chains, your costs are not going to be as cheap as areas like the East Coast of the UK, where there is now a very developed offshore wind community there. So the costs, they're also--

Should I start booing when we talk about the east coast? If it's not Celtic, we're going to boo for it.

East coast is great. But all of that--

the very long-winded way to say that yes, the costs absolutely will be higher. The strike prices for floating offshore wind--

until we can start to deliver at scale and then drive that cost down. So I just think sometimes it's not particularly helpful to compare to fixed offshore wind on a cost point of view, because those sites are the low-hanging fruits there.

As I said, they're the easy ones to develop--

or easier. I don't think anyone who's developing them would say they're easy. Whereas we're looking at floating wind is breaking totally new ground. Fantastic opportunities, but all of those things are going to have costs.

So if you guys are in deep water, does that mean there's less NIMBYs?

I mean the miseries who don't like to see offshore wind.

No, that's a strong word--

but I do mean it. They can just get on with it.

So it's much less visible, because it's further offshore. So people can't necessarily see it. I think that there still would be concerns. People would feel--

because, again, the comparison to fixed wind--

that people could still be worried that it could be a blight on the landscape. So there's good stakeholder engagement being done to educate and explain that, actually, these projects are further offshore.

And they bring benefits again--

so jobs to the areas that need development and need new jobs. New industry coming back. So I think people understand a bit more that there's opportunities, as well as potentially concerns there. There are stakeholders that have real concerns about floating wind.

And there's lots of work going on to sort that out for the fishing industry.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: Yeah, true.

There can be real concerns from them, because if you're going to be putting cables through areas that they want to fish--

What are fish like in the Celtic Sea?

KERRY HAYES: Ooh. I'd have to check with my environmental colleagues on that one.

The fish--

I know the North Sea is pretty good for fishing.

I think there is a very busy shipping industry there. But people do good work to ensure that you don't end up putting projects in the middle of really important fishing areas. So there's a lot of work to be done to avoid conflicts with other stakeholders, and then to mitigate the risk as well.

I'm going to ask a stupid question now. I can't believe it's taken me so long to ask. How does a floating wind turbine not fall over?

It's a very good question.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: Obviously, it's got anchors. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm from Birmingham, so we have canal boats. It's about the only boating experience we have.

How do they not fall over?

So the platform that they're on is essentially balusted so that it won't fall over. They're made either of--

well, there's all sorts of designs for steel or concrete. So they're specialist designed to ensure that they don't topple over in these conditions.

So a big bit under the sea which keeps it stable.

Well, for some of them. There are multiple types. And I'm, again, not an engineer. But the platforms, rather, that we're using at the moment are a semi-sub. So there's a bit under the water and a bit above.

And it keeps it stable. There are other types, but unfortunately, as I've said, I'm not the engineer. So I can't go into matters of depth about how the inner workings--

Would it still be serviced by the same sort of boats? Wind-capped vessels, like the ones that push on that fall flat front. Same operation.

Very similar operation maintenance sort of processes for those. The installation methodology will be different. You can tow the turbines out as they are.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: Oh, man.

Whereas with fixed wind, again, you'd take your barge full of monopiles out. And you'd install the base piece and then you'd put your pile on.

So you construct it onshore almost like a shipyard and then tow it out?

KERRY HAYES: Yeah.

Nuts. Absolutely nuts.

Yeah. But it makes it interesting and it makes it challenging, because it means that your port infrastructure needs to have enough deep water, laydown space, long quays--

all that kind of stuff--

to then do that onshore piece, and then tow it out to location. And then just stick it in.

Somewhere on the west of Wales is going to have a very deep port soon.

KERRY HAYES: I'd say. That would make--

Where would it be serviced from in the Celtic Sea?

Well, it's a good question. Everybody is readying themselves at the moment, so the ports industry is really wanting to be there to support the floating wind industry. At the moment, I think it's probably fair to say that nobody is quite ready yet, but there's big investments being made to increase the size of the laydown space, build new quays, make sure that they've got the deep water that's required.

My money's on Barry. I used to work at Barry Power Station for a while. I love that place. Come on, Barry.

I know we--

I didn't think the word Barry would come up in this podcast. We talked a lot to Pembroke and to Port Talbot and others. But there's lots of opportunity for all of the ports in the Celtic Sea and further afield to get into.

Grimsby is smashing it, is that right?

KERRY HAYES: Yeah.

The fishing port of Grimsby--

it very sad what happened in Grimsby with fishing. We can blame all sorts of things, but it certainly wasn't their fault. And then the fishing industry died--

pretty much almost died.

And then out of nowhere came offshore wind surfacing. And bam, Grimsby's--

all the hotels are full. It's got loads of people working, traveling up there.

The boats are now all doing fantastic. And the winter in the Celtic Sea could have the same. Very exciting.

But I think it'll be winners. I do think there'll be lots, because there's lots. I don't think--

so the scale of the opportunity is going to require a huge increase in the port infrastructure, because our project, Erebus--

the first one that we will be doing is 7 turbines.

But as I said, if people think there's 50 gigawatts out there--

even in the 4 gigawatt leasing round that's to come, we're doing 100 megawatts, which is a tenth of a gigawatt. That's seven platforms and turbines.

Scaling that up to the 4 gigawatt opportunity, it's [INAUDIBLE]. And I can't do the maths that quickly. That's a lot of turbines.

Yeah, that is a lot.

KERRY HAYES: That's a lot of platforms. So there's a lot of opportunity.

Generally, whenever anyone has to do maths on his podcast, it's wrong and just completely rubbish.

I just might try.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: Can we talk supply chains for a minute?

Yeah.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: Because I know this is general windy stuff.

So in the battery space, everyone's talking about supply chains.

Rare Earth metals--

there's essentially a proxy war going on between China and the States about buying up mines in the Congo and whatever. That's a podcast on its own. We should do that.

But also productionizing and producing battery cells, there is not enough production capability out there. So how does--

and that's a real bottleneck, because every country in the world is trying to build battery, battery, battery. But the same is happening with wind, particularly Ireland, so people who can do offshore.

So what's supply chain look like in the wind industry right now? It it in turmoil?

I'm going to get told off for saying turmoil. Again--

strong, but I believe it. Is it in turmoil like the battery world is?

It's a good question, and one that I'm probably not close enough to the real nitty-gritty of the supply chain to actually answer. But I do know that everybody is trying to upscale. Everyone's trying to be ready for the opportunity.

The demand currently does far outweigh what we can deliver. And there's lots of very clever people doing lots of things to try and change that by reducing the requirements for certain bits of materials that are required to build these things by reducing waste from projects so that you can just do them a bit more cheaply.

Yeah, weight must really matter, especially if you're floating.

Yeah. I'm just glad I'm not an engineer, having to deal with the calculations to make sure that these things all work out. We have some very clever people on those projects.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: Do you need calm seas? Or can you--

I assume you can't go in choppy.

Yeah, it's really challenging. Again, weather windows are really important, because you need to be able to get your kit out there safely. You need your people to be able to get it out there safely. So to tear it out, you do need a decent--

So we're probably not doing the middle of the Atlantic anytime soon.

KERRY HAYES: I wouldn't have thought so, no. I told you, it's about the Celtic Sea.

About the Celtic Sea.

Sorry for mentioning any other sea. And there's a few things. I've got some notes here that I wanted to ask you about. And we should have done some more prep.

But the floating ecosystem. So you guys are developing sites. Are there some big OEMs that are pushing this forward? What does that look like?

Yeah. All the OEMs are getting involved.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: So the seamens and the quays and those guys.

Yeah, all of those guys are all developing their turbines and being ready to start servicing the floating market, which will be new markets for them in most cases. But yeah, they're all behind it.

So it's not fixed versus floating. It's almost like an evolution of--

KERRY HAYES: Because the turbines are identical, I think. She says that very confidently without having checked that. They are pretty much identical. The integration between the turbine and the platform is the challenging bit, but the turbine is the same.

So they're producing them and wanting to sell to the project developers.

So the game is--

I was quite excited by this. So it's like we can access way more of the sea to put wind turbines on it. The game is we need to get costs down. So we need to build, build, build--

learn, learn, learn--

and get costs down.

I should have asked--

we're really jumping around. So this project is already built.

KERRY HAYES: There's a couple of small ones.

Is one of them called High Wind? Or did I justs make that up?

KERRY HAYES: Yes.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: Me mentioning High Wind earlier was a Freudian slip, but not completely wrong. So what's High Wind about? Are you allowed to talk about High Wind? Is that you?

It's not one of our projects.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: Let's talk about yours, then.

Well, we haven't built one yet.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: Oh, let's talk about High Wind yet.

No, there were a few projects that have built. And I think the maximum size is around 50 megawatts. There's the Kincardine Project off Scotland, which is relatively close to shore for a floating wind project. Then there's going to be a project built--

well whose just--

will hopefully be being built just ahead of Erebus, which will be off the coast of Cornwall.

Yeah.

KERRY HAYES: And this is by a company called--

it's the Twin Hub Project that Hexagon are doing. And then it's going to be Erebus that's going to come next is the plan. Our lovely 100-megawatt project, which will be the first in the steppingstones approach here. Or we'll be building on the smaller stepping stones.

And when I say stepping stones, it's an approach that's being developed by the floating wind sector to suggest that we need to start small-ish and then upscale in a sustainable way to allow the supply chain to catch up. Because as we've said, there's masses of competition here. The infrastructure's not quite there yet.

Surely we can tap into some of the oil and gas bods who have been doing this for ages, right? These shipyards.

KERRY HAYES: Yeah.

We're not starting from scratch, which is good.

We're not. But in areas like the Celtic Sea, we have got--

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: There's got to be something musical we can--

A ting.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: That sounds good. Anyway.

Which is my focus. Again, we haven't developed--

we haven't got quite the same oil and gas history. There is some oil and gas. And the steel industry and such has been around, but we haven't got quite the same infrastructure to tap into as you have up in other parts of the country. And the reason that matter is--

yes, arguably you could tow from further afield.

But there's so many challenges with that. You already mentioned weather windows. If you're coming across multiple bits of ocean, you've got different weather windows and different weather systems and such. And you lose all the local benefits, then.

And this is a real opportunity for development in areas that have previously maybe not benefited from fixed wind. So the Celtic Sea could benefit from having upscaling the infrastructure there and do homegrown work that we can then export as well.

You mentioned it without saying the words leveling up. I actually think was very, very well played.

I'm trying to avoid sound bytes. Yeah, it's true, too.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: I want to make sure to ask you a couple more questions. And I'm going to tell you what they are in advance. So the first one is about opportunities. So if this thing takes off--

which it looks like it will--

what does that mean that's different to what we have at the moment?

Second one is more of a battery-ish question, which is if you're in deeper seas--

and I think you get higher wind yield. Is that the word? Wind spread. Does that mean you're more dispatchable and you can participate in balancing services better?

There's less intermittency. Does that mean we could class floating wind and deeper seas as a higher reliable amount of inertia? I won't talk about inertia, but does this mean that the blades will spin more?

Yeah. So the wind is more consistent in deeper water. So you can absolutely extract more from a project, which is great. And that's it. I think that will give you that very constant flow back.

In terms of batteries, controversially for this office, I'm not a battery expert.

So I don't think I could comment on whether or not it could operate in balancing services. But what I would say is that floating wind--

lots of developers now are looking at ways to overcome grid challenges. And what you could do with your power if you can't get it into the grid, because it's one of the biggest challenges at the moment to floating offshore wind.

Offshore bitcoin mining, that's what we should be doing.

Offshore, in general. So lots of people are looking at things like hydrogen or building battery storage into their projects in order to not lose the opportunity. So there's lots of people looking at that and different models to make the project stack up particularly when you can't connect into the grid--

or can connect into the grid, but it's much more challenging.

OK. And then now, here's the plug.

You, now, Kerry, represent the whole offshore floating wind industry. What's the opportunity here?

The opportunity is huge. There's many opportunities. Globally, there's hundreds and hundreds of gigawatts that we could deploy here. And the UK has got a fantastic opportunity to go first to and to capture all sorts of benefits around our coasts.

So jobs--

many of them. I think Renewable UK, who represent the renewables industry, reckon that we need another 100,000 people working in offshore wind by 2030. 5,000 welders. I love that fact.

That's a lot.

That's a lot of welders. There's huge opportunities for jobs for everybody at all levels.

Not necessarily in Birmingham, though.

KERRY HAYES: Not necessarily in Birmingham.

We would have to move to the coast.

Yeah.

So there's opportunities, yeah--

for our ports to benefit from this, for people to benefit from it.

Green energy.

We're in a climate crisis. We've got net zero to go for. The government has set a target for floating wind of 5 gigawatts by 2030, which is extremely challenging, but a target is welcomed. And we fully expect offshore wind to become the backbone of the energy system.

That is a lot--

5 gigs in the next eight years.

Keeping us all up at night.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: Have they even consented for 5 gigs?

No. So at the moment, I mentioned, obviously the Crown Estate--

the Celtic Sea leasing round will happen in early next year. And there will be 4 gigs from that. We just had Scotland, which was quite widely reported as they got--

I think it was 18 gigawatts that they leased.

And I think half of that was floating--

or 10 was floating. But these projects have really long development pathway at the moment. And that has to come down to get anywhere near that target.

18 gigs in Scotland, and half--

where are all these people going to come from?

I know. It's the biggest challenge facing us as an industry, is recruitment. And there's such a gap between the ambition and where these people are.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: How are you going to get everyone?

Yeah, it's really challenging.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: People think batteries is hard work.

It's the thing that is--

every event I go to at the moment, every meeting I'm in, every developer I talk to, every part of the supply chain I talk to, we are all saying the same thing. We just can't recruit quickly enough, because everybody wants to be part of this. But the ambition is well ahead of the--

Wow.

KERRY HAYES: Where we are with people at the moment. It is really hard. But obviously, that presents an opportunity, in that people from the oil and gas background, or ex-military, or all sorts of other sectors--

Yes, welcome. Come on.

KERRY HAYES: Can come on in and bring their transferable skills and convert them. And I think there are masses of opportunities for people who want to get in on the green revolution.

This is probably a good time--

we haven't talked about net zero and the targets. What are the targets for offshore wind?

So offshore wind has now got a 50-gigawatt target by 2030. That was 40 gigs. And it was 30 gigs. And it keeps incrementally increasing by 10 gigs at a time.

And floating wind is now 5 gig out of that 50--

so 45 for fixed.

45 trad, 5 floating.

And that was 1 gigawatt.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: And what do we have right now?

In the UK, I think max--

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: I'm putting you on the spot here. I'm sorry.

100 meg max across a couple of small projects.

Sorry, I mean across all--

so it's 20 gigs of wind?

Oh, sorry. Including fixed. I don't think it's quite as much as 20 now.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: So we've got a long way to go.

Really long.

It's funny. Just politicians picking numbers out. It's just--

KERRY HAYES: Yeah.

I'm backing it, though. We can make 50 work.

Yeah. And I think targets are helpful, because it does give you something to rack against as a backdrop. And it's helpful, in that it really focuses the mind. There are lots of challenges that need to be ironed out. I've mentioned grid. There are real challenges with the grid. We know it needs upgrading.

At the moment, going through the offshore transmission network review, which, instead of--

in previous times, all projects would just connect, point to point, in a radial connection. That would mean lots and lots of cables onshore, lots of connections onshore. And they're now trying to review that to make sure that we're a bit more coordinated. But that's the challenge.

So you have hubs of big cables coming in.

KERRY HAYES: Yeah, that sort of thing.

Izzy, are we all right? Sorry, Izzy the producer is just wandering around, which usually means that something's broken. But we seem to be OK. It's good.

The risk of not doing this is too great.

We know climate change is a thing. We are, as you say, boiling the oceans, warming our planet. We have to take action now.

The threat from climate change is bigger than the threat from COVID. It's bigger than the threat from anything else currently face.

It's not bigger than the threat from bureaucracy, which is possibly the biggest threat to humankind's preventing extinction ever.

So there's a massive opportunity. There's a massive ambition.

We've got a massive target. We now need to work some of these bits of the puzzle out in order to enable the deployment at the pace that we need it to go.

Well, let's do it. I'm buzzing with floating wind from the wind.

All right. Anything else you want to plug before we finish? This is your chance.

My chance. I mean, I've never been known to have a conversation in the renewable space without mentioning my personal bugbear, which is around the lack of gender diversity in the sector. It's something I'm deeply passionate about. And I think it's an opportunity with floating wind now, that we can try and reinvent the sector slightly.

We don't have to keep doing what we've always done. Floating wind isn't doing what we've always done. And we can try and make sure we build a much more inclusive industry. And I focused on gender, because that's the bit I most feel most qualified to comment on.

Clearly, there needs to be much better inclusion across the population. We absolutely cannot get to net zero--

5 gigawatts, 50 gigawatts, whatever number you want to throw--

without engaging the full weight of the population. It's just--

So we need 2,500 female welders.

KERRY HAYES: That would make me so happy.

Yeah. And we need everybody there. But I've mentioned so many problems. Problems need solving. They need creative thinking. They need to do things differently.

People need to do things differently. Therefore, we need to bring in different people from different backgrounds and different ways of doing things. And I think it's a fantastic opportunity we've got to engage much more of the population than we currently do. So that's something I just--

literally can't remember the last time I had a conversation publicly or anything, anywhere, without discussing gender balance.

No, thanks for bringing it up.

KERRY HAYES: I have to bring it up.

No, I think we can do it.

It's a fresh start. Let's do it.

One last thing to ask you. Do you think 50 is going to happen?

Yeah.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: By 2030?

50 will definitely happen.

2030 will be a challenge unless some of the things that I mentioned can be sorted out at pace to unblock some of the systems. So as I said, planning has to be managed well.

But we also have to build projects. So we've got to find a way to reduce planning time frame.

The review around the grid has to happen, but it's got to happen much more quickly. We've got to invest in the infrastructure onshore in order to be able to bring these projects back on. We've got to invest in our ports now. We've got to start upskilling those people.

We've got to find these welders. So we've got to be--

It's a lot of change.

It's a coordinated effort to put all the bits of the puzzle together to drive as far and as fast as we can towards that 2030 target. And so I'm cautiously optimistic.

I think the government--

this is my last--

KERRY HAYES: If they listen.

I think the government--

yes, Boris, you. I think we need so many people to move out of other industries into--

there's a fixed population. We need to move so many people over to building green stuff. I think the government, because it's in the spirit of creating money from thin air at the moment--

we should create money from thin air and give bonuses to people who move into the wind sector, the offshore wind sector--

particularly in the Celtic Sea, but--

And particularly women. No.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: Particularly women, yeah. Why not? Radical thinking, right?

Yeah. You jest, but we do need to incentivize the sector. We need to be advocates for the sector so that people realize what an amazing place it is to work. We're doing really cool stuff--

not only is it good for the planet, it's cool. It's great big bits of kit. That one turbine rotation can power a home for two days, so that's cool.

I think it's cool, anyway. I might need to get out more.

But we do really need to make people realize what an attractive place it is to work--

and doing good stuff. And the breadth of opportunities.

In our organization alone, we've got people with legal backgrounds, environmental backgrounds. We've got engineers. We've got social sciences. You name it, we've got it.

And I think that's the point with the renewable sector and floating wind, in particular. There's something for everyone, whatever the skill set is, to come and make and have that contribution.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: I 100% agree. Right, so we're going to do it. We've run out of time. Thank you so much for coming on, Kerry.

Thanks for having me.

Yeah. So anyone who's listening, watching--

however you're consuming this, please do let us know. We've had loads of feedback recently from people watching and listening. Let us know. Comment, subscribe, and we'll see you next time.

Thanks very much.

Thanks so much for having me.