Universally known as the Granite City, Aberdeen is a vibrant, entrepreneurial city in the North East of Scotland, home to a unique mix of business opportunities and specialist skills across various sectors. A world leader in energy technologies, the emerging global energy transition presents a significant economic opportunity for the city.

Aberdeen is one of the most exciting and attractive locations in Europe to develop and accelerate low-carbon projects and activities. The City’s clean energy sector has grown significantly in recent years, boosted by the considerable talent pool of energy engineers and scientists in the area, as well as the abundant wind and tidal energy resources just off the North Sea coast. Aberdeen’s tangible energy transition plans leverage its unique cluster of assets and resources including its world class supply chain capabilities, making it a natural choice to become a pre-eminent climate-positive city leading the world in the shift to a net-zero future.

Aberdeen’s Net Zero Routemap sets out the path that Aberdeen needs to follow as a world leader in utilising the energy sector as an economic driver for the city, the region, and beyond.

 

Hydrogen Economy

Aberdeen continues to build on its reputation as a centre of excellence for hydrogen and fuel cell technologies as the UK’s leading hydrogen city. The Aberdeen Hydrogen Strategy outlines key actions required over a 10-year period to utilise the city’s significant potential for early deployment of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, as well as becoming the hub for hydrogen technologies in Scotland.

H2 Aberdeen is an initiative working to bring about a hydrogen economy in the Aberdeen City Region. Currently, Aberdeen boasts two publicly available refuelling stations and one of the largest and most varied fleets of hydrogen vehicles in Europe, having hosted 115 hydrogen vehicles over the course of the programme. This includes double-decker buses, waste trucks, roadsweepers, passenger cars, vans, and hydrogen cargo bikes.

 

Offshore Wind

Scotland has a huge capacity for the generation of renewable energy, including an estimated 25% of Europe’s offshore wind potential. In recognition of this potential, Crown Estate Scotland recently announced two leasing rounds for offshore wind, the first in Scottish waters in a decade. The first round (ScotWind) resulted in 20 projects securing seabed option agreements and the second round (INTOG) resulted in 13 projects being offered exclusivity agreements.

In 2022, the ScotWind leasing round included a pipeline of projects totalling 28GW. With the majority of these licenses being within 100 nautical miles of Aberdeen, ScotWind will bring vast opportunities to the city over the next decade. In 2023, the INTOG (Innovation and Targeted Oil & Gas) leasing round was the world’s first designed to enable offshore wind energy to directly supply offshore oil and gas platforms. INTOG will attract investment in innovative offshore wind projects in Scottish waters, as well as help decarbonise North Sea operations.

Further projects located in the Aberdeen City Region include Equinor’s £200 million Hywind Pilot Park, made up of five 6MW wind turbines on floating structures at Buchan Deep. It has been operational since 2017 and generates enough energy to power ~35,000 UK homes.

Adding to Aberdeen’s offshore wind success is the development of the 50MW Kincardine Offshore Wind Farm (KOWL) in Aberdeen Bay, which is one of the world’s largest floating offshore wind farms. KOWL is expected to generate up to 218GWh of clean electricity a year, which will be enough to power approximately 55,000 Scottish households.

Vattenfall’s European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre, located in Aberdeen Bay, is Scotland’s largest offshore wind test and demonstration facility. The £300 million project is comprised of eleven turbines with a capacity of 92.4MW and will be in operation for 20 years.

 

Infrastructure

ETZ (Energy Transition Zone) Ltd

ETZ Ltd is a private sector-led, not-for-profit company spearheading the North East of Scotland’s energy transition ambition. Dual areas of focus include acting as a regional catalyst for energy transition and the delivery of the largest dedicated energy transition complex in Scotland, the Energy Transition Zone.

The 250 hectare Energy Transition Zone is located on Aberdeen’s coast in close proximity to Port of Aberdeen’s new South Harbour. The Zone will be made up of four campuses, clustering activity in Wind, Innovation, Skills and Hydrogen.

Each of the campuses include a transformational anchor project. The world’s first National Floating Offshore Wind Innovation Centre is the anchor project of the Wind Campus and is now fully operational. Developed in collaboration with ORE Catapult, the centre will reduce the cost of energy from floating offshore wind, support the creation of a floating wind supply chain and increase UK content for new O&M practices.

The Hydrogen Zone will include a Green Hydrogen Test and Demonstration Facility. This project is designed to provide industrial users with state-of-the-art hydrogen specific testing facilities.

Within the Skills Campus, the Energy Transition Skills Hub will provide new flexible teaching spaces, technology demonstration, and a welding and fabrication academy in collaboration with North East of Scotland College. It will also include a mobile energy transition manufacturing skills lab which will reach schools across the North East.

The Energy Incubator and Scale Up Hub (EISH) will be the anchor project of the Innovation Campus and will host around 3,000 m2 of flexible industrial and collaboration space.

 

Port of Aberdeen

The Port of Aberdeen is Scotland’s largest berthage port, offering over 7,000 meters of quayside. It serves as Europe’s premier oil and gas port and also supports industries including renewables, decommissioning, trade and tourism.

Completed in 2023, the £420 million Aberdeen South Harbour expansion was the largest marine infrastructure project in the UK and is intended to support the new offshore wind and hydrogen industries, bringing new jobs and investment into the region.

Port of Aberdeen is located within close proximity to current and future offshore windfarm sites, and the Energy Transition Zone campuses, bringing customers and their supply chains closer to their projects. Existing use of the harbour includes component manufacturing and construction support for offshore wind, with a specific interest in floating offshore wind. There are also plans to expand the port’s use for operations and maintenance.

 

The Aberdeen Hydrogen Hub

Final investment decision was agreed in July 2024 to proceed with the Aberdeen Hydrogen Hub project. This project is delivered by a joint venture partnership, bp Aberdeen Hydrogen Energy Ltd (bpAHEL), formed between Aberdeen City Council and bp and aims to deliver a commercially scalable green hydrogen production, storage and distribution facility in the city powered by renewable energy.

bp will build, operate and manage the Hub including delivery of a solar power array and green hydrogen and refuelling facility for the City’s public transport fleet. First gas is expected in 2026 and development will deliver significant opportunities for the hydrogen supply chain as well as for reskilling and upskilling in renewable energy. Future phases could see production of green hydrogen scaled up for export and links to offshore wind developments.

 

TECA

Aberdeen’s £333 million Conference Centre and Event Complex (TECA) is home to the largest fuel cell installation in the UK, on par with the largest in Europe, with a dedicated on-site energy centre to provide power, heat and cooling to the conference and event area – providing a total electrical output of 1.4MW.

The TECA Energy Centre was designed, engineered and built with hydrogen production capability of up to 400kg per day, two electrolysers, a compressor and hydrogen storage. With the increased demand for hydrogen in the city, Aberdeen City Council is coordinating the recommissioning and re-certification of the on-site hydrogen production kit and are undertaking required alterations to enable the transport and distribution of hydrogen directly to a city centre bus depot.

 

Useful Links:

Companies

Meet Aberdeen energy companies

The World Energy Cities Partnership (WECP) connects leading energy cities on all continents that are committed to fostering the transition to a more sustainable energy future.

See all
Education

Academic partnerships

The World Energy Cities Partnership (WECP) connects leading energy cities on all continents that are committed to fostering the transition to a more sustainable energy future.

Contact

Get in touch with the City of Aberdeen