30 Jun 2010 03:06:01

Offshore wind sector 'must work on reaching its potential'

Power generated from offshore wind farms is likely to play a "central role" in the UK's energy future, but the industry faces uncertainty.

Maria McCaffery, chief executive at RenewableUK, said that the offshore wind sector has already proved its potential for power generation but the government must put a clear policy framework in place to remove uncertainty.

The milestone of creating 1,000MW of store capacity was achieved by the offshore wind industry this year and a further 40GW's worth of projects are in development.

In its programme for the government, the coalition announced it would create an offshore energy grid to support the growth of the offshore wind industry but there has been no further information on how this will be achieved.

Ms McCaffery highlighted that the challenge for the offshore wind industry now was to establish "the cheapest and quickest way to deliver safely the huge potential of our sector".

"We need to build confidence in the long-term commitment to this sector if we are to unleash over £100 billion of private investment," she added.