EnBW and bp bolster Scottish offshore wind project with X-Academy secondees

Morven, bp and EnBW’s flagship Scottish offshore wind project, is creating roles for five secondees from X-Academy, a professional development programme to reskill workers for the energy transition.

It is estimated that around 40,000 workers will be needed to meet energy transition targets by 2030 and bp and EnBW have committed to providing £1 million to the X-Academy in a five-year partnership to support the industry-led skills organisation.

Through this programme, bp and EnBW’s Morven project will support a number of secondees – known as ‘xccelerators’. The first five xcellerators to be handpicked for a secondment on the project are Isabelle Pouncey, Duncan Swanney, Sharon Reji, Louise Davies and Robert Hughes.

The secondees will work with the joint venture team at bp’s headquarters in Aberdeen, taking up roles within the environment and consents, procurement, training and skills, and project management divisions. Each will receive on-the-job training during a six-month rotation.

Alongside investments in the X-Academy, the Morven project is expected to unlock £10 billion for offshore wind development and support thousands of direct and indirect jobs. As part of this, bp and EnBW are expanding bp’s electric vehicle infrastructure across Scotland, supporting Scottish shipbuilding and port development, and backing green hydrogen production.

Richard Haydock, project director for Offshore Wind at bp, said: “Morven goes beyond generating wind energy and we are investing in upskilling people for Scotland’s energy transition. bp and EnBW are thrilled to welcome the five xccelerators and are looking forward to developing their knowledge of offshore wind and equipping them with the skills to help deliver Morven.”

Peter Tipler, managing director of X-Academy, said: “Having just celebrated our first year, X-Academy has been met with an incredible reaction from the industry. bp and EnBW have recognised the value we could add to their project and placed a huge amount of trust in the skills programme, and the level of talent that this would attract. Morven really is a benchmark project for X-Academy and shows how it can support vital new energy projects as they come to fruition.”

To date, X-Academy has offered opportunities for hundreds of people to work on initiatives that reduce accelerate efforts towards net zero and has had made meaningful contributions to Scotland’s future energy sector, with secondees for other industry partners including the Net Zero Technology Centre.

Based in Aberdeen, X-Academy’s two-year mentored placements are open to graduates and people looking to reskill for positive change.

The 2.9GW Morven project was awarded to bp and EnBW in the 2022 ScotWind leasing round. Located approximately 60km off the coast of Aberdeen, covering an area of 860km2, bp and EnBW are developing Morven as a fixed-bottom offshore wind project with a potential generating capacity of around 2.9 gigawatts, sufficient to power the equivalent of more than three million homes when operational.

Morven is one of three cutting-edge offshore wind farms bp and EnBW are developing in the Irish and North Sea, to help contribute to the UK’s 50-gigawatt and Scotland’s 11-gigawatt wind power targets by 2030.

Recent UK Offshore Energy Workforce Transferability Review from Robert Gordon University