Scottish Power makes Lowestoft its wind farm base

Scottish Power said the new base would "expanding its existing footprint" in Lowestoft

A coastal town is to be the long-term home of Scottish Power's offshore wind operations.

The company said it was investing £8m to acquire and develop the site on Trinity Road, Lowestoft, Suffolk.

The new site will be close to the company’s operations and maintenance base for the East Anglia One offshore wind farm, which is located on land owned by Associated British Ports at Lowestoft Port.

Ross Ovens, renewables' managing director for offshore development and operations at the company, said the site had already proven to be a "fantastic location".

"Lowestoft has a rich history with the offshore industry whether it's fishing, oil and gas or renewables," he told BBC Radio Suffolk.

"We've already got our existing base here, we've proven it's a fantastic location.

"We have good facilities at the port for the vessels to go in and out so it's got a proven track record and we want to build upon that and expand our footprint."

Ross Ovens of Scottish Power said Lowestoft offered the "right conditions" for offshore wind farm projects

RJ Pryce, who are currently on the site, will move to a nearby location, Scottish Power said.

The site is expected to have capacity for about 100 staff members, and will provide an operations and maintenance base for the East Anglia Three offshore wind farm, which is currently being built and due to be in operation by 2026.

Scottish Power said it would be its biggest ever wind farm, the second largest in the world, and will power about 1.3 million homes.

Scottish Power currently has its East Anglia One Operations and Maintenance base, at Hamilton Road, Lowestoft

Beyond East Anglia Three, Mr Ovens explained Scottish Power would have two additional wind farm projects - East Anglia Two and East Anglia One North.

As well as this he said plans inshore for a substation at Friston as well as a converter station near Saxmundham would help with these.

"Those two projects are fully consented projects, they will go ahead," he explained.

"What's important is we need to have the onshore infrastructure to take the power to where it needs to go.

"This is important, vital infrastructure for the UK, green energy into the grid and we need the infrastructure to take it where it needs to be."

Campaigners have throughout the years expressed concerns over wind farm projects on the Suffolk coastline, whom Mr Ovens said Scottish Power was "sympathetic" with.

"We try to minimise the impacts as much as we possibly can and an example of that is on East Anglia Three and East Anglia One where we actually installed a lot of the infrastructure together in one go to minimise the impacts on the local communities," he said.

Kevin Keable of the East of England Energy Group said projects such as East Anglia Three were needed to meet electricity demands

Kevin Keable, the chair of the East of England Energy Group, added the new site would create additional jobs while bringing in billions of pounds to the area.

He stressed the country's need for electricity was growing in demand and other energy projects such as the Sizewell C nuclear power station also planned for the county would help with this.

"You have to look at the statistics and numbers - the amount of electricity that we're using these days just data centres... photo and video storage alone online uses 6% of this country's electricity, that's a huge number," he said.

"Then you've got to take into account electric cars and heat pumps that are going to be used in the future so there is a huge demand for electricity.

"We all need it, every single member of the public in this country."