Ming Yang Smart Energy (‘Ming Yang’), a world-leading wind turbine manufacturer, has today announced plans to create Britain’s largest, and first fully integrated, wind turbine manufacturing facility to be located in Scotland. The three-phase project will involve investing up to £1.5 billion in a new wind turbine factory for offshore and floating offshore projects for the UK and for export, creating up to 1,500 new jobs, with a potential 1500 new jobs in later phases.

A number of sites in Scotland have been shortlisted, with Ardersier Port near Inverness the current preferred location, enabling the redeployment of those previously employed in the oil and gas sector.

Ming Yang leads the world in the development and operation of offshore wind technology, representing 31.3% newly added capacity globally in 2024, including the 16.6 MW ‘Ocean X’ dual-rotor floating wind turbine platform, which paves the way to reduce offshore wind development cost by up to 30%, and in turn lowering household energy bills. By bringing this technology to the North Sea, the opportunity is created to accelerate the commercialisation of floating wind technology, to onshore strategic elements of the renewables supply chain, and to make the UK the centre of the European wind sector.

The combined three-phase strategy would create an offshore wind hub to serve the UK, European and other non-Asian markets as follows:

Phase 1: Invest up to £750 million to create an advanced manufacturing facility for both wind turbine nacelles and blades with first production by late 2028.

Phase 2: Expand the facility and infrastructure to serve the deployment of floating offshore technology at scale in the UK.

Phase 3: Develop an offshore wind industry ecosystem around the hub, which includes manufacturing of control systems, electronics and other key components.

Ming Yang has held extensive discussions with the UK and Scottish Governments over the last two years on its plans as well as holding detailed commercial discussions with Great British Energy, the National Wealth Fund, the Scottish National Investment Bank, the Crown Estate and UK Export Finance. The investment plans are still subject to final approvals from the UK Government and are an integral part of a wider pan-European strategy, in which other locations are being explored.

This announcement follows a strategic partnership announced last month with Octopus Energy to deliver affordable, clean wind energy and bring down bills for British households and to explore the implementation of Octopus Energy software to create the highest levels of data protection and cyber security in combination with Ming Yang’s cutting-edge offshore and onshore wind turbines.