This monster and others like it are bound for the North Sea part of the biggest and most ambitious offshore wind programme in the world.Britain gets more electricity from offshore wind farms than all other countries combined.
Siemens and Associated British Ports will initially invest £310m on a wind turbine facility in the city that will build and service the UK's massive Round 3 offshore wind programme.
He said an offshore wind investment programme had to be matched by developing appropriate skills in the workforce.
The recent announcement of a large-scale offshore wind generating programme was welcome, but the UK still lags far behind other European countries in developing renewables capacity.
The multinational oil giant Shell is facing fresh criticism of its Arctic offshore oil drilling programme, after one of its platforms was left stranded in an environmentally sensitive area of the Alaskan coast.
A spokesman for Shell said: "Shell recognises that certain organisations are opposed to our exploration programme Offshore Alaska, and we respect the right of individuals and organisations to engage in a free and frank exchange of views about our operations.
The government must also embark on an offshore wind investment programme which would include focused packages of grants and research and development incentives, a near-shore testing facility for technology and underwriting of borrowing to ensure short-term guarantees for lending.
Under the programme, the offshore scallop stocks have been rebuilt, landings have been more stable and the fleet has been rationalized as expected.
Some £34m is to be axed, affecting low-carbon technology programmes including offshore wind, wood fuels, building insulation and geothermal energy.
The licence holders are generally of the view that the introduction of the enterprise allocation programme into the offshore northern shrimp fleet "has been a major factor in the development of an economically stable offshore fleet" (Angel 1999).
