Socio-economic impact assessment for Green Volt OWF

Green Volt Offshore Wind farm is the first commercial-sized floating offshore wind farm in Scotland to secure both onshore and offshore planning permissions. BiGGAR Economics worked with Flotation Energy and RHDHV to support this application by providing a Social and Economic Impact Assessment (SEIA) of the project.

Background

Green Volt Offshore Wind Farm is part of the INTOG (Innovation and Targeted Oil and Gas) Leasing round and will comprise up to 35 floating turbines with a capacity of up to 560 MW.

The Environmental Impact Assessment was submitted as part of the planning application in January 2023. The EIA contained a chapter on Socio-economics, Tourism and Recreation that was prepared by RHDHV. Initial feedback from the Marine Analytical Unit requested more information so BiGGAR Economics commissioned to prepare a Technical Appendix on the Socio-economic Impacts to support the planning application.

The Technical Appendix was submitted in December 2023 and Green Volt received consent in April 2024.

Our work for Green Volt expanded on two areas;

the potential social impact of the Green Volt development; and
the potential economic impact of the Green Volt development.

Approach to the Social Impact Assessment

The main social impacts associated with floating offshore wind projects are those which will occur around the key port locations and other epicentres of activity.

The social impact assessment did not include primary research because:

the primary port locations are not known at this stage; and
any individual primary social research conducted by the developer could have jeopardised any future industry collaboration on social research (see next steps).

Instead, the social impact assessment considered the recent study on the social impacts of offshore wind that was completed by the Diffley Partnership and published by the Scottish Government in 2022 and other information that was available on the demographics of the offshore wind sector and the potential port locations.

The work by the Diffley Partnership found that the majority of residents of areas near to offshore wind farms did not think the offshore wind farm had an impact on either their quality of life, community relations or community character. Of those who did express an opinion either way, more found the impact to be positive compared to those who considered it to be negative.

Economic Impact of Green Volt

The assessment also considered the potential economic impact of Green Volt.

This assessment considered two supply chain scenarios for Scottish content, a base case and a high case. These were linked with scenarios described by BVG Associates because, unlike ScotWind projects, Green Volt had not produced Supply Chain Development Statements.

The economic opportunity from floating offshore wind projects like Green Volt is huge. We estimated that in the Base Case, the project would support over 1,000 jobs in Scotland during the construction period. In addition, around 200 jobs would be supported throughout the supply chain during the operational lifetime of the project.

Next Steps

The next step for Green Volt will be to move towards the Final Investment Decision and ultimately construction of the project.

The next steps for others in the sector will be to build on the approach taken in the Green Volt SEIA with new information, when it becomes available. In particular, new data on social impacts associated with offshore wind development and any new developments within the supply chain in Scotland.

We believe that a strategic and collaborative approach should be taken to additional primary social research to build on the recent studies published by the Scottish Government. This issue has been raised by developers through the Scottish Offshore Wind Energy Council and there is a strong willingness for developers to collaborate on this topic.

Crown Estate Scotland is leading a collaboration on primary social research, that will support the assessment of all offshore wind projects in Scotland