FIRMS which may never have considered their skills suitable for the wind energy sector may be missing out on an opportunity, it was claimed yesterday.

About 250 representatives of companies from across the North-East and UK as a whole, as well as Japan and Norway, attended the Future of Offshore Wind conference at Hardwick Hall, near Sedgefield, yesterday.

The North-East is expected to be at the forefront of an industry anticipated to be worth about £100bn to the UK in the next decade, Already Tata Steel, formerly Corus, and TAG Energy Solutions are expected to create more than 600 jobs on Teesside, at two factories making offshore wind turbine foundations. Clipper Windpower is developing the world’s largest turbine blade at a £25m riverside factory, near Newcastle. Hartlepool firm JDR Cables is a world leader in producing cables to connect wind turbines, and the National Renewable Energy Centre (Narec), in Northumberland, which organised yesterday’s event, runs Europe’s leading wind turbine testing facility.

With the potential to supply these and similar developments, small and mediumsized North-East firms were encouraged to look for opportunities.

Peter Madigan, head of offshore renewable at Renewable UK, said: “We have the onshore wind market which is well established and has an established supply train, but offshore wind is very much a new industry and doesn’t have its own dedicated supply chain yet, so that creates an opportunity for one to be created.

“Onshore is dominated by Denmark, Germany and Spain, because they have been working onshore for a long time, but we can potentially leap frog them by moving into the offshore sector, where there are no established players, and become one of the leading nations.

“Any engineering firm in the North-East should be seeing whether there is an opportunity to diversify into this sector. People focus on the turbines because they are the highest cost item of the system, but it is also the one with the most components.

“The second tier manufacturers which are going to supply them are also needed. So if you can get turbine manufacturers in the UK it means the small and medium-sized companies can supply into those bigger manufacturers and build a supply chain.”

Mr Madigan believed it was also going to have a positive impact on the North-East ports sector, particularly with turbines increasing in size and weight.

He said: “Ports are vital for the industry because one of the things about offshore wind is that we want to build bigger turbines.

“As you get bigger machines they become heavier and bigger and the ability to transport them by road is reduced.”

Dr Alan Lowdon, Narec’s director of technology and innovation, said: “There are a lot of skills sets in the area that can find a home in the next industrial revolution we are going through.

“What we are trying to do today is blow away a lot of the mystery about getting involved in this sector.

“There are a lot of skills which can be brought to bear here and an opportunity for organisations which have a technology that has never been seen in the renewable context, but by coming along they may see how that can be used.”

Mr Lowdon had recently attended a conference where delegates were of the view that the North-East had “stolen a march in the offshore renewables area”.

He added: “We are ahead of the game, a fantastic place to be.

“What we have got is an opportunity which is unprecedented in our lifetimes.”