Humber estuary can be 'Silicon Valley of green energy'

It’s a startling future vision for the Humber estuary - the Silicon Valley of green energy, leading the world in sustainable power generation.

It may seem far-fetched now, with the much-vaunted plans by Siemens for a plant building offshore wind turbines still to pass through planning and be finally confirmed, but one industry leader is in no doubt about the Humber’s place in what he calls a “CO2-free economy”.

Dr Eddie O’Connor (pictured) is Chief Executive and Founder of Mainstream Renewable Power, a company working in partnership with Siemens in the SMart Wind consortium developing the Hornsea offshore wind field, one of three huge North Sea turbine clusters within a few hours “steaming time” of the Humber.

He’s also Secretary of the European Wind Energy Association and a leading voice in the renewables field. Last week he was in Hull to talk about his vision of how offshore wind will “change the world” as “the fossil fuels era comes to an end”.

I’ve heard many speakers hail the economic potential of renewable energy for the Humber. Typically, the impact of offshore wind is predicted to be similar to that of the discovery of North Sea oil to Aberdeen. But Dr O’Connor’s assessment went much further. He described an economic powerhouse spanning both banks of the Humber, leading the transformation to sustainable energy for Britain, Europe and then the world.

His vision is based on the commitment of the UK and other nations to develop green power sources for environmental and energy security reasons. That, he says, presents a huge opportunity for the UK as an island nation with the natural resource of wind in “super-abundance”.

In a presentation to a conference at the University of Hull, Dr O’Connor predicted huge investment across Europe during “two generations of transformation to a sustainable future” in which offshore wind will be the “backbone and centrepiece” of European energy generation. He sees the Humber at the heart of that investment because of its proximity to three of the largest offshore wind fields.

The Humber ports are already Britain’s busiest docks complex, but Dr O’Connor described even more activity along the estuary, with two new ports focused on the offshore wind industry - Green Port Hull at Alexandra Dock in Hull, where Siemens will operate, and the Able Humber Port site on the south bank. He says six different types of vessels will operate out of the estuary in construction, operation and maintenance of the turbines.

He also foresees makers of turbines, towers, blades, foundations and cables all congregating around the Humber. “All of this will probably happen around the super-cluster that is being constructed as we speak on the Humber estuary,” Dr O’Connor told the New Energy Workforce conference.

The drive for a low-carbon future is underway across the continent, but the focus will be on the UK, he says. He estimates that up to 20 offshore turbines a day will need to be built over 40 years to meet Europe’s renewable energy needs - a significant proportion of them in UK waters. “That is good for the environment and very good for this country,” says Dr O’Connor. He predicts the UK will export excess electricity from wind power to the continent. “We will be supplying electricity for export many times the demand in the UK,” he says.

Until now Germany and Denmark have been the leaders in offshore wind, but Dr O’Connor believes Britain will soon take the mantle, with a resultant jobs bonanza. Based on the German experience, he predicts up to 150,000 jobs from offshore wind developments around the UK by 2020.

It will take decades for the UK and Europe to move to predominantly low-carbon energy generation and, even beyond then, Dr O’Connor says the UK can use its expertise to help the new economic super-powers such as China and India to adopt renewable energy.

Offshore wind has its critics - some say it is too expensive and the turbines don’t work when the wind doesn’t blow - but Dr O’Connor’s case is made more persuasive by the announcement the day after the conference that two of the “big six” energy companies have pulled out of plans to develop nuclear power plants in Britain.

E.ON and RWE npower scrapped their plans in the wake of concerns over nuclear safety following last year’s Japanese tsunami. The decision threw the British Government’s energy policy into disarray, but made it even more certain that wind power would be required to make a huge contribution to the country’s renewable energy needs.

Dr O’Connor says the issue of inactive turbines will be resolved by the development of a “super grid” connecting the wind fields and ensuring continuity of energy generation across a giant network of thousands of turbines. “The wind is always blowing somewhere,” he says. “It may be locally variable but it is globally plentiful”.

Dr O’Connor’s vision helped to set the conference in the context of the economic opportunity for the Humber. Other speakers highlighted a number of challenges in fulfilling the potential of renewable energy, foremost among them a predicted shortfall in engineers. Martin Hottass, Head of Skills for Siemens UK, said Britain needed almost 100,000 new engineers by 2016 as one in three reach retirement age.

All the speakers agreed it was a major priority to help schools, colleges and universities to encourage young people into engineering. Mr Hottass talked of Siemens’ commitment to working with educational establishments and training providers to encourage young  people to choose a career “in a really exciting sector with loads of opportunity”.

It was a message heard loud and clear. University of Hull Vice Chancellor Professor Calie Pistorius said the university had a range of courses and programmes focused on renewables and the low-carbon economy.  It was committed to building “a workforce that is low-carbon aware and has the right specific skills,” he pledged.

Certainly there is now a concerted focus across the Humber to equip local workers with the skills to gain employment and build careers in the offshore wind and wider renewable energy industries.

But will Dr O’Connor’s vision of the Humber at the heart of an offshore wind bonanza become reality? He is clearly an evangelist for offshore wind and his forecasts may be at the most optimistic end of the range, but even if the impact is half of what he predicts, the effects will be truly transformational and be felt for decades.

“Why can’t the Humber become the Silicon Valley of the energy of the future?”, asked Dr O’Connor. Why not indeed. And what a thrilling, unprecedented opportunity to transform the fortunes and long-term prospects of a region where unemployment is stubbornly high.

• The New Energy Workforce conference at the University of Hull was staged by Humber Chemical Focus and the university’s Centre for Adaptive Science and Sustainability.

Humber Chemical Focus

Centre for Adaptive Science and Sustainability at the University of Hull

Dr Eddie O’Connor blogs on offshore wind and renewable energy issues at http://eddie.mainstreamrp.com/

The new Hull school that aims to make young people ready for work

For far too long Hull has been labelled an educational backwater, but there’s no doubt that a whole raft of initiatives are transforming learning within the city.

The most obvious change can be seen in school buildings across Hull, as a result of a £400m Building Schools for the Future programme. Schools such as Archbishop Sentamu Academy in Preston Road and Sirius Academy in west Hull are more akin to silicon valley campuses than traditional secondaries. Those academies are also among several new-style schools seeking to drive up standards of attainment in a city which not long ago recorded the worst GCSE results in England.

And the initiatives keep coming. The latest is a studio school, pioneered by Hull College, one of only 12 in the UK and due to open in September at the college’s Queens Gardens site.

The studio school will be very different from traditional schools, or even the new academies. I heard about those differences during a presentation by the college’s Deputy Principal Gary Warke and Director of Young People’s Learning Lynne Richardson at the latest meeting of the One Hull Business Forum.

It was an appropriate audience, as the studio school is focused on developing young people to be ready for the world of work. Enterprise and employability are the key words, as the schools strives to address the often-heard criticism from businesses that school-leavers are not equipped with some of the basics - such as punctuality, professional appearance and communication skills - required of today’s workforce.

The studio school will take pupils aged 14-19 and be comparatively small, with a total of 300 pupils. The target is to enrol 120 in September - 60 aged 14 and 60 at 16.

The school day will run from 8am to 5pm and the emphasis throughout will be on practical work. Students will spend a significant proportion of the week in the workplace - those aged 14-16 will be on unpaid work placement for up to four hours a week, while the 16-19-year-olds will have up to two days paid employment.

The curriculum will focus on the core subjects of English, maths and science, alongside a choice of vocational qualifications. Education will be taken out of the usual classroom setting, with students learning primarily through project work.

The school will also employ what it calls “personal coaches” to support students and help to link them to employers, while the college says the new school’s disciplinary and reward systems will be based on those “commonly found within the workplace”.

And, in perhaps the most obvious difference from traditional schools, students will wear what is described as “business attire”, rather than uniforms.

I suspect much of the above will be warmly welcomed by employers, who often complain that young people lack the core skills, focus, attitude and, sometimes, sheer common sense to make a valuable contribution. Too often, a re-education process is required when young people join a business. The studio school aims to remove that process, by producing youngsters who are familiar with the expectations and demands of the real world of work.

The studio school will face many challenges, among them convincing sufficient parents to interrupt their child’s education by moving them from a traditional secondary, or academy, to the studio school at 14.

It also seems to me that the expectations for work placements and paid employment are ambitious, for both the students and employers. The studio school will certainly have to ensure that bringing students into their businesses is not unduly demanding for employers, in terms of supervision or health and safety requirements. The school will need to make it easy for employers to come on board and also demonstrate to them that their students can make a real contribution - that this isn’t old-style “work experience” under a new guise.

However, it is interesting to hear Hull College say they have the backing of more than 100 businesses already. P&O Ferries and Rollits are featured in the promotional literature.

The studio school is a certainly a brave and bold initiative, which deserves success. Employers will applaud Hull College’s faith in the concept if it delivers to them young people who have the inter-personal qualities, discipline, core skills and enterprising spirit to add value to their businesses.

It also adds another facet of innovation to the rapidly-improving education facilities and provision in Hull, as the city’s young people and, of course, their parents have access to greater options and opportunities than ever before.

Those improvements are now feeding through into raised attainment. As I write, newly-released statistics show Hull - once rooted to the bottom of the GCSEs league table - has climbed to sixth  from bottom. A long way to go, but progress nonetheless.

Of course, the studio school’s focus will not be purely on academic achievement, but on producing young people ripe for the workplace and, potentially, the entrepreneurs and wealth creators of the future. Academic ability and practical skills are both important - developing a better educated, more enterprising workforce will be vital to unlocking Hull’s economic potential.

·    Potential business supporters of the studio school are invited to attend a launch event at Queens Gardens on Thursday, 2nd February, from 4.30-5.30pm, with guest speaker David Frost CBE, Chair of the Studio Schools Trust and a former Director General of the British Chambers of Commerce. Attendance should be confirmed by e-mail to ebarker@hull-college.ac.uk or by phone on 01482 598817. This will be followed by an information event for parents and students from 6pm-7.30pm.

·     For more information about the studio school, contact Lyne Richardson at lrichardson@hull-college.ac.uk or 01482 381928. Further information on the studio schools concept can be found at www.studioschoolstrust.org

The Sewell Group - a local force for good

I’ve watched the progress of the Sewell Group for many years, but this was the first time I had really seen the business up close.

I was privileged to be asked to deliver the opening address at the 2012 Sewell Group Convention and give an external perspective on the business - how it has developed; what has underpinned its success; and where the future opportunities lie. Afterwards, I was an interested observer as managers from across the Sewell divisions put the directors through a question and answer session; were told of plans for developing the business; and listened to the 2012 business plan overview.

It all reinforced the opinion I had formed of Sewell from a distance over the years - an impressive, progressive business that involves its people in plotting its future direction and inspires them to make great things happen. No wonder it has been ranked as one of Britain’s best companies to work for in each of the past three years, out-performing many huge businesses with legions of people focused on people issues.

In considering my external perspective, I was keen to impress on the Sewell people how special their business is. I wanted to highlight that they do much more than contribute to a commercially successful company - they each play their part in a powerful force for good.

Many businesses talk about their Corporate Social Responsibility policies and how much they “give back”, but, in my experience, being a force for good is often claimed, but rarely, really true. In Sewell’s case it certainly is. The evidence is all over Hull in the state-of-the-art health centres and schools which have transformed the local built environment.

They’re not just buildings - they’re statements of confidence and intent, achieved by public-private sector partnerships united by a desire to give the local community facilities and services of which they can be proud.

Sewell is a diverse business spanning construction, investment, project development, facilities management and retail. With the exception of the latter, none of the activities are traditionally associated with excellence in customer service, but it seems to me that Sewell is an exception to the rule. In construction it has changed the conversation from building to function and budget, to building quality and legacy for communities and future generations.

And, while improving local communities, health provision and life chances, the business has developed what Managing Director Paul Sewell calls “trust-based relationships” with “delighted” customers. Quality and customer service have resulted in repeat business, enabling Sewell to grow at a rapid rate. It now employs 350 people - in itself a force for good - and prides itself on giving its staff careers, not just jobs.

So being a force for good and commercial success can go hand in hand. Indeed, during the Q&A Paul Sewell stressed: “Profit is not a dirty word. Only profitable companies can be a force for good, give back and give their people careers”.

Sewell has prospered over many years from investment in public sector facilities in Hull, principally the Local Improvement Finance Trust (LIFT) programme, transforming primary health centres, and Building Schools for the Future. But the times are changing. As I highlighted in my presentation, the political landscape is now very different, the public sector is under the cosh and Private Finance Initiative (PFI) schemes, which Sewell pioneered, are under the microscope.

But the business is not unsettled by these challenges. While the pipeline of projects is very healthy going forward, Sewell has a dual focus on delivery today and planning for tomorrow. Director Paul Brooke has moved into a new role focused on business development, intrinsically linked to communications and the Sewell brand.

There will be new opportunities, but the business understands it should, as Paul Brooke says, “look from within first”, by focusing on its core competencies, capabilities and track record. Health will continue to present opportunities, particularly due to the needs of the ageing population. There will be others. Sewell is well placed, in the words of my presentation, to “reinforce its reputation as a private sector partner of choice for the State”.

Sewell is also looking at the expected huge wave of investment in renewable energy in the Humber region, with Siemens as the catalyst. Sewell aims to be a strategic partner and the company’s recently-opened Skills Academy positions the business to play a key role in closing the skills gap, so local people can seize the promised job opportunities. Once again, Sewell is a force for good, supporting investment, skills development and job creation.

The desire to be a force for good can also be seen in a relaunch for the Sewell Foundation, which will co-ordinate the company’s charitable activities and match-fund fund-raising efforts by individual employees.

Sewell Group has an ambitious vision - to be a world-class local company - and being local is key to its success. As a business with its roots in Hull, Sewell understands the city’s psyche. And, as people increasingly turn away from huge, faceless corporations, the power of local will be an even greater advantage. That can certainly favour the Sewell Retail forecourt & convenience stores business, although I suggested there was a case for doing more to sell local to customers and remind them that, by buying petrol, newspapers and other items from Sewell, they are supporting a local business investing in the local community.  

Sewell is fundamentally a family business and it felt like a family to me, as I watched Sewell managers flag up 2011’s highlights - the “moments of truth” - and the “oops” occasions when things didn’t go so well. There was real pride in their achievements, but no hint of complacency; plenty of honesty; and a sense of shared values and mission.

The economic climate may be depressed, but the Sewell Group and its people enter 2012 with a real belief that they can continue to produce great commercial results by doing great things for the local community.