West of Orkney Windfarm appoints Stuart McAuley as Project Director

The West of Orkney Windfarm has appointed Stuart McAuley as its new Project Director to lead the contracting and build-out of their proposed £multi-billion offshore wind project which has now submitted its offshore consent applications to Scottish Ministers.

Stuart is currently Technical Director Offshore Wind at TotalEnergies, one of the shareholders in the West of Orkney project. He brings a 25-year track record in the offshore energy sector, having held senior management positions with a number of major operators.

Stuart will take up his new role in early November.

 Mark Giulianotti, Head of Europe at Corio Generation and chair of the West of Orkney Windfarm says:

“Firstly, I’d like to thank our outgoing Project Director Stephen Kerr who has done a fantastic job in leading the project through to submitting a comprehensive offshore consent application, achieving this milestone only 20 months after being awarded the site. This makes the West of Orkney Windfarm the leading ScotWind project.

“The project is in a strong position to now move forward into front-end engineering, design and procurement, which fits perfectly with Stuart’s experience in the delivery of major offshore projects in the UK.

“This is a natural progression for the West of Orkney Windfarm as we move through the consenting phase and into engineering design, contracting and construction of what will become one of Scotland’s largest green energy infrastructure schemes.

“Timely consent for this pioneering project will however be crucial if Scotland and the UK are to capture the economic and net zero benefits which a thriving Scottish offshore wind industry can bring.”

Stuart McAuley says:

 “This is an exciting moment to be joining this flagship project which promises to bring significant economic and social benefits to the north of Scotland.

“I look forward to working closely with what is already an expert team in crystallising our project design and liaising with the ports, harbours and tier 1 and tier 2 suppliers who will be crucial in bringing our ambitious vision to life.”

Last year, the West of Orkney Windfarm secured the development rights to an area of seabed from Crown Estate Scotland in the highly competitive ScotWind leasing process to bring forward an offshore windfarm 30km west of the Orkney Mainland and 25km north of the Sutherland coast.

The project will have up to 125 turbines on fixed foundations, an expected capacity of around two gigawatts and aims to deliver first power in 2029. It is being developed by a joint venture comprising Corio Generation, TotalEnergies and Renewable Infrastructure Development Group (RIDG).

In October the West of Orkney Windfarm reached a major milestone by submitting comprehensive offshore consent applications to Scottish Ministers. It is the first ScotWind project to have applied for consent, having achieved this milestone only 20 months after being awarded the site.