Bp and EnBW has launched a bespoke online portal for the Scottish engineering and supply sector, as the companies aim to expand their partnership’s offshore wind portfolio by taking part in the upcoming ScotWind leasing round.

The supply chain portal, www.bp-EnBW.com/Scotwind, will act as a central hub advertising all current and future opportunities for sub-contractors and suppliers associated with any development projects should the companies be successful in the auction.

Companies based in Scotland, with significant operations in Scotland or that have plans to relocate their base or operations to Scotland are encouraged to register interest for future opportunities.

Dev Sanyal, bp’s executive vice president of gas and low carbon energy, said: “The Scottish supply chain has played a pioneering role in the development of the North Sea and the global energy industry and we are confident they will be key to developing this new industry offshore Scotland.

“Scotland has a world-class supply chain with decades of experience in offshore energy – that deep skillset can be readily applied to offshore wind. This portal will ensure the Scottish supply chain – from listed companies to small, family-run operations – can easily access and pair their skills with future upcoming opportunities.”

The site will also invite SMEs and firms looking to transfer their skills or operations to offshore wind. The portal is being launched ahead of the ScotWind auction, as both bp and EnBW continue to build their respective wind businesses.

Earlier this year, bp entered the UK’s offshore wind power sector, currently the largest in the world, together with EnBW. They formed a 50-50 joint venture to jointly develop and operate two leases in the Irish Sea that offer a combined potential generating capacity of three gigawatts (GW) – sufficient to power more than 3.4 million UK households with clean electricity.   

EnBW is a major German energy company, with more than 10 years of experience in designing, constructing, servicing and operating wind assets. EnBW is one of the largest energy supply companies in Germany and Europe with a workforce of approximately 24,000 employees and aims to achieve climate neutrality by 2035.

In 2020, EnBW started-up Germany’s largest offshore wind project – the Hohe See and Albatros developments in the North Sea, with a combined output of 640MW.

Last year, bp formed a partnership with Equinor to develop offshore wind projects in the US, including joining projects with a planned potential 4.4GW generating capacity. Onshore in the US, bp has a gross generating capacity of 1.7GW, operating nine wind assets across the country.

Rapidly growing its renewables business is core to bp’s strategy – by 2030 bp aims to have developed around 50GW of net renewable generating capacity up from 3.3GW in 2020. This relates to the aggregate quantity, net to bp, of renewable generating capacity that has been developed to the point of Final Investment Decision.  The strategy also includes plans to increase bp’s annual low carbon investment 10-fold, to around $5 billion a year.