Kilkeel Fishermen Make Money on Offshore Energy Industry

Fishermen and business people from Kilkeel in Northern Ireland have teamed up and took advantage of the booming offshore wind and tidal energy industries.

They formed the Kilkeel Collaborative Network, which represents fishermen and onshore service providers, and secured marine service contracts worth several millions of pounds (GBP) with offshore energy developers.

Work that is required to complete environmental impact assessments (EIAs) for planning applications can now be carried out by fourteen boats and their crews, accredited to provide services such as scientific seabed surveys, studies of submarine fauna and flora, shipping traffic data, wind speed surveys and other.

“Kilkeel Collaborative Network represents all the businesses in the harbour and that includes fishermen, electricians, boat builders, plumbers, engineers and others who stand to gain from the new business opportunities presented by offshore energy developments as well as a strong fishing industry,” Irish daily, the News Letter, quotes Davey Hill, spokesman of the Kilkeel Collaborative Network, as saying.

“The boats and the expertise of those who work them are also in demand for servicing requirements of completed and operational wind farms and we are now contracted to work on sites between Arklow in the south all the way round the top of Scotland and into the North Sea,” he further added.

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Offshore WIND Staff, January 22, 2014; Image: Albert Bridge