Offshore: Cabling crunch will hit in five years

OFFSHORE: The offshore wind industry will face a supply chain bottleneck around 2015, because the sluggish trickle of offshore projects is discouraging supply chain companies from investing in the eye-watering amount of cabling required to make the UK's offshore dream come true. This is the stark warning from a leading electricity network supplier. "We can see lots of work in the middle of the next decade but, to realise that, we must make huge investments within the next 18-20 months, just when the market is dangerously quiet," says Matthew Knight, business development manager for Siemens Transmission and Distribution.