21 - How floating wind is taking offshore to deeper levels with Kerry Hayes (Project Development Manager @ Simply Blue Group)

[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.

It's certainly not me.

No.

No, 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.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: Mm-hmm.

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, sustainable aquaculture.

Aquaculture?

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: Yeah, so--

That's a cool new word.

We've never heard that on the podcast before.

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

We do work--

we do some wave energy stuff. So we do all sorts of things, and we're constantly evolving. But our kind of main ethos is doing really good stuff with the oceans.

And yes, 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--

KERRY HAYES: Props to Regen.

--in here.

Thanks, 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, so--

That seems to happen quite a lot, right?

There's loads of--

yeah.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: It's a great way to bring people into the sector, though, to start off as an intern and then work your way up and earn your stripes.

But for that, and the reason I'm in floating right 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.

KERRY HAYES: --different--

[LAUGHS]

Everyone's been jumping on this ocean, like, what did you say?

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: That's what it is now.

What's the word that we just said for the first time, ocean--

Aquaculture.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: Aquaculture bandwagon, yeah.

So lots of people moving around from different things. So I actually sort of 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.

It didn't quite go to plan. Unfortunately, it did get made redundant after a couple of nights.

I wasn't laughing at it not going to plan.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: [LAUGHS]

But I was laughing at just--

tidal is 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 of--

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 the 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, kind of startup mentality, so just flying off in different directions to do all good things. And everything is mission driven, so--

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: How big 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.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: OK.

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.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: Yeah, not bad.

And I am recruiting. I'm desperately trying to recruit.

Oh, here--

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: So if anyone wants to go and work--

--come the the perk.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: [LAUGHS]

Yeah, so if you've got a shark fish hanging around your neck, then--

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: --perhaps apply for a job.

--going to work in flip-flops and going for surf Wednesdays, then I am trying to recruit.

No. So I'm in a 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 useful 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.

KERRY HAYES: Yeah, we do.

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.

KERRY HAYES: 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 the seabed, to attach to the turbines to the seabed. So whereas all of the turbines that you would recognize around the coast, pretty much all of them are monopile, 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 sort of hesitant, there is some debate in the industry about how deep you can go with monopiles. But broadly speaking, 30, 40 meters, you've kind of got to your limit there.

So like a pile in the ground onshore--

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: Yes.

--you put a big pile in the ground--

--off shore?

Just, there's a lot of water on top.

There's a lot of water on top, and you've got a drill quite deep. And it can be a bit more challenge environmentally. But 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 be piling into the seabed, it's likely to be slightly more disruptive.

And so at the moment, so just coming back to monopile for a second, so we're talking about big bits of metal and concrete going deep, deep, deep into the seabed--

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: --into the seabed.

--and putting a turbine on top.

And that's the current way of doing it.

KERRY HAYES: Yeah.

And we know 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 politically good for the seabed. So then someone came along and said--

well, I'm going to say a turbine on a boat here.

[LAUGHTER]

KERRY HAYES: Turbine on a boat? No, no. [LAUGHS]

Someone said, why don't we make this thing float? So how does that work?

So 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 solution, 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 kind of catches into the seabed rather than it being--

Drag embedment?

KERRY HAYES: 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 the drag embedment anchors. So it's much more environmentally friendly, and you can go much deeper.

OK, so a big floating bit of metal--

KERRY HAYES: Yeah.

--and then anchored in multiple places to the seabed.

KERRY HAYES: Yeah

And then you stick a turbine on top.

Stick a turbine--

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

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

Yeah, there is some movement in it, because it's not sort of 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 there.

That's true, right?

So on the seabed, you've got all these cables. And the tide moves them around anyway.

KERRY HAYES: Yeah.

So--

KERRY HAYES: There's a bit of movement, so--

--even interconnectors sometimes can--

KERRY HAYES: --can shift off.

Yeah, can shift off.

KERRY HAYES: Yeah, absolutely. So yeah. So we got into floating wind because essentially, my founder, 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.

KERRY HAYES: Yeah.

What on earth is the Celt--

KERRY HAYES: The Celtic Sea.

It's a sea full of Celts.

[LAUGHS]

So he spotted the Celtic sea with this opportunity where we don't have any floating offshore wind. 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.

KERRY HAYES: It's on the west side. So it's the bit of sea--

the bit of sea--

that goes from sort of Cornwall, covers the Devon coast and up to the bottom of--

halfway up Ireland and covers Wales in there as well. So it's like a backwards C shape on this side, 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--

OK.

--but in--

it was gas, not--

[LAUGHTER]

That was the olden days, right?

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

Yeah, yeah, I'm converted. So it's below the Irish Sea?

I'd be interested to know where it comes in a shipping forecast.

KERRY HAYES: Yeah, well--

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.

KERRY HAYES: Yeah.

Very windy.

It's very windy. You 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--

OK, so let's just--

KERRY HAYES: --that, so.

Let's demonstrate this for a second. So the North Sea, for example, we've got chains everywhere.

KERRY HAYES: Sorry.

No, it's fine.

KERRY HAYES: I'm bashing things.

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 cases, it's like 10, 20 meters, right?

It's actually pretty--

KERRY HAYES: Some of them are--

It's not very deep.

KERRY HAYES: --pretty close to the shore and not very deep.

So for anybody who's listening to this, I'm not going to tell you what 10 meters is or 20 meters, but it's not that deep.

KERRY HAYES: It's not very deep.

And so 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 fixed between a monopile and a floating turbine. I think I'm fairly confident to say up to 40 meters, would be a max, 30, 40. Somebody will correct me if I'm wrong, but--

And that means you've got all this ocean out there you can't put these things in, right?

KERRY HAYES: Yeah, so--

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 up there? How much wind energy is there to get?

Yeah, a good question, and there are lots of estimates out there. I think the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult 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, 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, pretty amazing.

At the moment, people are--

so the way Simply Blue delivers projects is by forming joint ventures. So we decide that we want to do a project. We do a lot of the early works 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 projects, 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 Wind 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 hopefully--

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: So 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, it's going to be--

when it's built, it'll be the biggest floating wind project in the world.

--hoping to be built in a building out and constructing in 2026.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: OK.

And that is going to be kind of 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 sort of kick-started 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

--so off of Wales, chained to the seabed and operational.

Could we get an idea of scale? I mean, so does floating mean you can go bigger, or is that a misconception?

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

Oh, my days. This is so--

KERRY HAYES: They're huge.

Oh, I thought the 3.6s were big.

KERRY HAYES: Yeah, these are--

Wow.

KERRY HAYES: --huge turbines.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: Yeah.

They're bigger than the Gherkin in London. So they're pretty--

or maybe just about the same size. I should get exactly--

--though there's a picture that shows it.

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

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. Like, 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 that oh, dear. I've got to look at a wind turbine.

[LAUGHTER]

Anyway.

KERRY HAYES: Yeah.

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

let's get some parlance right here. Do you 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 and--

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: Trad wind.

All sorts of--

[LAUGHS]

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

So you can go big just like those guys.

KERRY HAYES: Yeah.

And then, how--

does this mean that there's a lot more wind power available to us as an island than typically or is the continental shelf around the UK pretty big and actually most of it is OK as fixed? Is high wind for other countries always high wind for us? Not high wind.

Oh.

High wind. That's the--

we'll talk about that in a minute. It's floating wind for other countries or for us.

KERRY HAYES: It's 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 a 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 has a 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, we're going 100% renewable tomorrow.

KERRY HAYES: Yeah, there's a lot of motivation.

Yeah, I love it.

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

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: Yeah. 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 100 megawatt lease. We're about to be going in for a big four gigawatt leasing

So last time I checked, there were now 21 developers who are wanting a piece of that four gigawatts.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: Wow.

And the--

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 1 to 3 with some extensions mixed in there.

So I know there was a round four. This 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.

KERRY HAYES: Yeah.

It's 4 and then a letter. And then, who knows how you want to split this up? What about investors?

Because in the world of batteries--

we always come back to--

we're battery geeks, right? It's only very recently that--

I say 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 cutting--

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 or are they a little bit unsure?

I think if they're not comfortable, they're very quickly getting comfortable. As I said, we formed 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 with all sorts of people who do already understand this a 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 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 has been doing deepwater floating projects for some time. So it's not completely new. It's just putting two bits together to create some things. So I think there is confidence.

So I know CFD is very important to wind, right?

KERRY HAYES: Yes. CFD, yeah.

So, CFD. Sorry. CFD stands for--

KERRY HAYES: Contracts for difference.

Contracts for difference. Right. And this is basically a mechanism so that--

I'll let you explain.

Bridget did a really great job. So you've got to beat Bridget--

Bridget did do a good job when I listened to her.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: --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 strike 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--

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: You have to give it back.

--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 projects. So it's important from a certainty point of view.

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

then trad wind?

KERRY HAYES: Yeah. "Trad wind." Yes, they will be higher. And I'm glad you asked the question because it's a really important point actually.

And it's something that those of us who are in the sector talking about all the time. Just yesterday, I was at an event and we were having a coffee and about eight of us just sort of 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.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: So cool.

But--

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: Sorry.

KERRY HAYES: It is cool.

Other wind types are available. Yeah. That's impressive to get below 40 quid. I mean--

It is fantastic. But there are lots of reasons that's happened. So fixed offshore wind is it 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 this deep conditions.

It's not apples for apples?

KERRY HAYES: 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. Well, 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 are also--

Should I start booing when we talk about the East Coast of the UK?

KERRY HAYES: I love it. East Coast is great.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: If it's not Celtic, we're going to boo for it.

East Coast is great. But all of that, it's a 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 think it's--

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 fruit.

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?

KERRY HAYES: Oh, there's the question.

I mean, all of the miseries we don't like to see offshore wind. No, that's a strong word but I do mean it.

KERRY HAYES: Yeah, I know.

They can get 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, 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 that to 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 to the fishing industry.

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

What's the fish like in the Celtic Sea?

KERRY HAYES: I don't know. I'd have to check with my environmental colleagues on that one.

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?

That's a very good question.

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

that's the only boating experience we have. So yeah. How do they not fall over?

So the platform that they're on is essentially ballasted 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 sort of specialist designed to ensure that they don't topple over in these conditions.

So big bit under the sea which keeps it stable.

KERRY HAYES: For some of them. There are multiple types. And I'm again, not an engineer but the turbine--

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, not the engineer.

So I can't go into matters of depth about how the inner workings of it.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: Would it still--

will it still be serviced by the same sort of boats, like wooden cut vessels? Like the ones that push on force flat front? Is it the same--

KERRY HAYES: Yeah, I think it'll be--

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: --same operational vibe?

KERRY HAYES: --very similar O&M, Operation and 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 monopoles out and you'd install the base piece. And then, you'd put your pile on and--

So you construct it onshore, almost like a ship yard--

KERRY HAYES: You can build it on shore in a ship yard.

--and then tow it out.

KERRY HAYES: Yeah.

Nuts. Absolutely nuts.

KERRY HAYES: Yeah. But it makes it interesting and it makes it challenging because it means that your port infrastructure needs to have enough deep water, lay down space, long keys, all that kind of stuff to then do that onshore piece and then tow it out to--

tow it out to a 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 hope so. 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 keys, 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--

[LAUGHTER]

Didn't think the word Barry would come up in this podcast. We talk a lot to Pembroke and Port Talbot and others. But there's lots of opportunity for all of the ports in the Celtic sea and further afield to kind of get ready.

Grimsby's smashing, isn't it? So the whole fishing port Grimsby was kind of--

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

KERRY HAYES: Yeah.

And then, the fishing industry died. Pretty much almost died. And then, out of nowhere came offshore wind servicing and bam. Grimsby's like all the hotels are full. There's loads of people traveling up there.

Got boats in and out all day. Fantastic.

So the winner in the Celtic sea could have the same. Great sign.

But I think it'll be winners. I do think there'll be lots--

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: Winners.

--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 four 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 four gigawatt opportunity, it's [INAUDIBLE]

and I can't do the math that quickly. There's a lot of turbines.

Yeah, that's a lot of turbines.

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

Whenever anyone has to do math on this podcast, it's wrong and it's completely rubbish.

KERRY HAYES: So I just won't try.

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

Yeah.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: Because I know this is general windy stuff. But so in the battery space, supply chain--

everyone's talking about supply chains. So rare Earth metals is essentially like a proxy war going on between China and the States about buying up mines in the Congo and whatever. That's a podcast in its own. We should do that.

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

and that's a real bottleneck because every country in the world is trying to build battery backup.

But the same is happening with wind, particularly islands or people who can do offshore. So what supply chain look like in the wind industry right now?

Is it in turmoil like--

I'm going to get told off for saying turmoil. But again, strong but I believe it. Is 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 and the demand currently does far outweigh what we can deliver. And there's lots of very clever people doing lots of things to try it to try and change that by reducing the requirements for certain bits of materials that are required to build these things by reducing weight from projects so that you can just do them a bit more cheaply and--

Weight must really matter, especially if you're floating.

KERRY HAYES: Yeah. 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. Very clever people on this project.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: Do you need to calm seas or can you--

I assume you can't go in choppy--

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 weather window.

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

KERRY HAYES: I wouldn't have thought, no.

No.

KERRY HAYES: I told you it's something about the Celtic sea.

Celtic sea. I'm sorry.

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. Is 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 Siemens and the GEs 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 check 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'm 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 to build, build, build, learn, learn, learn and get costs down.

We should have--

I should have asked--

we're really jumping around.

But so, this project is already built, right?

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

And is one of them called High Wind or did I just made that up? OK.

KERRY HAYES: You haven't just made it up. Yeah.

Me mentioning High Wind earlier wasn't a Freudian slip. But not completely wrong. So what's High Wind about? Are you allowed to talk about High Wind?

Well, it's not one of our projects.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: Let's talk about one of yours then.

Well, we haven't built one yet.

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

There were a few projects around that have built. And I think the maximum size is around 50 megawatts. There's the Kincardine project of Scotland, which is relatively close to shore for a floating wind project. Then, there's going to be a project built--

well, who's just--

well hopefully, be being built in just ahead of Airbus which will be off the coast of Cornwall.

And this is by a company called--

it's the TwinHub project that Hexicon are doing. And then, it's going to be Airbus that's going to come next is the plan. Lovely 100 megawatt project, which will be the first in the stepping stones sort of approach here. Or we'll be building on the smaller stepping stones.

And when I say stepping stones, it's a sort of--

It's an approach that's being developed by the floating wind sector to suggest that we need to start smallish 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 and the infrastructure is not quite there yet.

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

KERRY HAYES: Yeah.

So I mean, we're not starting from scratch, which is good.

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

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: We should--

there's got to be something musical we could--

Ting.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: That's not a bad sound. 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 it, 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 matters is yes, arguably you could tell from further afield but there's so many challenges with that.

You mentioned weather windows. If you're coming across multiple bits of ocean, you 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 developing development in areas that have previously maybe not benefited from fixed wind. So the Celtic sea could benefit from upscaling the infrastructure there and do home grown work that we can then export as well.

You managed to do that without saying the words leveling up, but I actually think was very, very well played.

KERRY HAYES: Trying to avoid sound bites. So yeah. It's true.

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 like 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.

KERRY HAYES: Effiency, yeah.

Does that mean you're more dispatchable and you can participate in balancing services better? There's less intermittency.

Does that mean there's a--

we could class floating wind in deeper seas as a higher reliable amount of inertia? Actually, that's--

[INAUDIBLE]

Does this mean that the blades will spin more?

Yeah. So the wind is more consistent in deeper waters. So you can absolutely extract more from a project, which is great. And that's it. You know, I think that it 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 would 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.

KERRY HAYES: Offshore mining. 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.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: Yeah, OK. And then, now here's the plug. So I'm going to--

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

The opportunity is huge. There's many opportunities globally with the 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 benefits.

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.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: Wow.

5,000 welders.

Wow.

KERRY HAYES: I love that fact.

Yeah. That's a lot.

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

Not necessarily in Birmingham, though.

KERRY HAYES: Not necessarily in Birmingham.

We'd have to move to the coast.

Yeah.

But there's opportunities for our ports to benefit from this, for people's benefit from it.

Green energy.

We're in a climate crisis. We've got net 0 to go for. The government has set a target for floating wind of five gigawatts by 2030, which is extremely challenging, but a target is welcomed.

And it will--

we fully expect offshore wind to become the backbone of the energy system.

That' a lot. Five 5 gigs in the next eight years.

KERRY HAYES: Yeah. That's keeping us all up at night.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: I don't know. Have they even consented for 5 gigs?

No. So at the moment, I mentioned, obviously the kind of states that we're going, the Celtic sea leasing round will happen in early next year. And they'll be 4 gigs from that. We just had Scotland, which was quite widely reported as they got I think it was something like it was 18 gigawatts that they leased. And I think half of that was floating.

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

80 gigs in ScotWind, and half of it's--

where all these people going to come from?

KERRY HAYES: 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.

SCRIMSHIRE: How are you going to get everyone--

Yeah.

It's really challenging. It's honestly--

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: [INAUDIBLE]

is hard enough.

Yeah. 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 there's--

the ambition is well ahead of the--

Wow.

--where we are with people at the moment. So it's just really hard. But--

but we--

but, also, that presents an opportunity in that people from the oil and gas background or ex-military or all sorts of other sectors that--

Yes, welcome.

KERRY HAYES: --can come on in--

KERRY HAYES: --and--

Yeah, yeah.

--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 to--

we haven't talked about Net Zero and--

KERRY HAYES: Yeah.

--the targets, right? So 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 kind of keeps incrementally increasing by 10 gigs at a time. And floating wind is now 5 gig out of that 50, so 45 for fixed. [INAUDIBLE]

45 trad, 5 floating.

Floating. And that was 1 gigawatt--

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: And what do we have right now?

--until quite recently. In the UK, I think max of--

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

--max of 100 mg, max, across a couple of small projects.

I mean, like across all--

there's like 20 gigs of wind in the UK.

Oh, sorry. For including fixed.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: Yeah.

I think

it's-- I don't think it's quite as much as 20 now. I think it's around 12, 13.

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

A really long way to go.

It's funny, like--

yeah. Just politicians picking numbers out, it's just like--

KERRY HAYES: Yeah.

Ah.

So it's--

yeah. It's--

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

Yeah. And I think targets are helpful, because it does give you something to work 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 grids. There are real challenges with the grids. We know it needs upgrading.

At the moment, we're going through the offshore transmission network review, which instead of in sort of 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 a challenge.

So you have hubs of big cables coming in.

KERRY HAYES: Yeah, that sort of thing.

Izzy, are we all right? So Izzy, the producer, is just wandering around, which usually means that something's broken.

But we seem to be OK. That's good.

OK.

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 that we currently face.

It's not bigger than the threat from bureaucracy, though, which is possibly the biggest threat to humankind--

KERRY HAYES: Yeah, potentially.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: --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--

KERRY HAYES: I'm here for it, too.

Floating wind for the win. All right. Anything else you want to plug before we finish?

KERRY HAYES: Anything else I want to plug.

This is your chance.

My chance. I've never been known to have a conversation in the renewable space without mentioning my personal bugbear, which is around--

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: Do it.

--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'm 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 not going to happen.

22 and 1/2 thousand female welders.

That's what we need--

KERRY HAYES: --make me so happy.

--to do this.

Yeah, yeah. And we need everybody there. We need--

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, no, no.

KERRY HAYES: So--

Thanks for bringing it up.

KERRY HAYES: --I have to bring it up.

No. Well, I think we can do it. So--

KERRY HAYES: We're on.

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

One last thing to ask you. So do you think 20--

do you think 50 is going to happen by 2030?

Yes.

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. So I'm cautiously optimistic.

I think the government--

this is my last rant--

KERRY HAYES: If they're listening.

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, right? We need to move so many people over to building green stuff.

KERRY HAYES: Yeah.

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--

Yeah.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: --particularly in the Celtic Sea, but especially--

And particularly women. No.

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: --particularly women. Yeah. Why not?

I think--

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: 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, that that's cool.

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

You heard it here first.

--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. There's--

in our organization alone, we've got people with legal backgrounds, environmental backgrounds. We've got engineers. We've got social sciences. We've got--

oh, 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--

QUENTIN SCRIMSHIRE: Yeah, yeah.

--to come and make--

and have that contribution. So yeah, I think--

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.

Thank you very much for having me.

And--

[MUSIC PLAYING]

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Thanks so much for having me.