Scottish Offshore Wind Energy Council

The Scottish Offshore Wind Energy Council (SOWEC) is a partnership between the Scottish public sector and the offshore wind industry, co-chaired by Gillian Martin, Cabinet Secretary for Climate Action and Energy, and Claire Mack of Scottish Renewables.

Gillian Martin MSP, (Acting Minister for Climate Action), speaking at All Energy Conference, Glasgow 11 May 2023” credit: All Energy 2023

Offshore Wind Ambition

Vision

A world-class offshore wind sector that underpins the transition to net zero by 2045 and maximises the value to Scotland.

Mission

To coordinate and grow the sector, ensuring the Scottish offshore wind industry is more sustainable, competitive, and commercially-attractive, both domestically and in the global offshore wind market.

SOWEC Goals

Deliver 11GW of fixed and floating offshore wind in Scottish waters by 2030.
Establish Scotland as a world-class offshore wind sector at the leading edge of technology innovation, driving excellence in efficiency, productivity, safety, and sustainability.
Support a transformational and rapid increase in economic value, delivering a world-class supply chain in Scotland.
Develop a highly skilled and diverse workforce, support new entrants, expand apprenticeships and enable transitioning from existing sectors whilst inspiring the future talent pipeline and increasing participation by currently underrepresented groups.
Champion floating and fixed offshore wind’s contribution to achieving Scotland’s net-zero commitment by 2045, incorporating the oil and gas transition, hydrogen and wider energy system integration.
Overcome barriers to the deployment of offshore wind in Scottish
waters, working with stakeholders to accelerate the delivery of key
enabling infrastructure to achieve 2030 and 2045 commitments,
that will contribute to a just transition.
Promote collaboration with relevant stakeholders which aims to
ensure offshore wind infrastructure deployment has a positive net
gain to biodiversity in Scotland and the marine environment.

SOWEC Subgroups

The Challenge

SOWEC has five subgroups tasked with dealing with different industry challenges. These include a Developer, Skills, Innovation and Barriers to Industry subgroups along with a Supply Chain and Clusters subgroup.

Industry Relationships

The diagram on the left sets out the relationships between the SOWEC main board and the delivery subgroups along with illustrating the reciprocal links and feedback loops with the two Scottish supply chain clusters, DeepWind and Forth & Tay Offshore.

SOWEC Offshore Wind Developer Milestone Map

Scotland’s offshore wind sector has a robust pipeline of projects. The SOWEC Offshore Wind Developer Milestone Map aims to track real-time data from these projects, with all the data supplied by the developers. By mapping out key milestones and ongoing activity, it provides valuable insight for the supply chain.

The map was one of the key outputs of the Strategic Investment Model (SIM). The first of its kind, the SIM was an innovative collaborative approach to tackling the challenges of enabling the significant investment required in offshore wind infrastructure and supply chain capacity at the scale and speed needed to allow Scotland to meet its ambitions.

SOWEC Publications

Subgroup Terms of Reference

The Scottish Government sees offshore wind as one of the most important economic and net zero opportunities we have.

Gillian Martin MSP, Minister for Energy, Scottish Government

The offshore wind sector in Scotland

Find out more about the offshore wind sector and what's happening across Scotland.