Britain needs to challenge the big overseas renewables companies such as Vattenfall to sell its expertise to the rest of the world, according to the head of the new state-owned investment company GB Energy.

Dan McGrail, GBE’s interim chief executive, said floating offshore wind farms offered a “huge opportunity” for British technology, and the supply chain already exists in the oil and gas industry.

The former boss of the industry group RenewableUK and a former executive at Siemens, wants to shift the focus from importing parts for UK offshore windfarms and build them at home.

“If we are able to be catalytic in bringing forward more projects here, then we can deepen supply chains. That then turns into an export story over a much longer period of time,” he told The Times.

Mr McGrail has indicated that he may apply for the £350,000 a year post on a permanent basis. An advert says the successful candidate will need to be in Aberdeen, or “a non-home-based location for at least 60% of the time”. The deadline for applications is 20 April.

Chairman Juergen Maier, a former Siemens colleague, this week said he was “puzzled” by reports that GB Energy would employ a thousand staff at its headquarters. On the contrary, he said it was important for the HQ to be “lean” and to focus on creating thousands of jobs in the field.

The Treasury has dismissed recent reports that the £8.3 billion budget for GB Energy could be trimmed in next week’s spending review and will use the fund to crowd in private investment to accelerate growth in renewables capacity. This in turn would help meet the government’s promise of lower energy bills.

Those countries that are ahead in renewables have a publicly-owned organisation at the centre, such as EDF (France), Orsted (Denmark), Statkraft (Norway) or Vattenfall (Sweden). These companies have big stakes in the UK energy sector. EDF is building Britain’s a nuclear plant in Somerset, while the UK government has a stake in a second plant in Suffolk being built by the French state-owned company.

Mr McGrail’s comments follow a joint presentation on Monday by Scotland’s First Minister John Swinney and the UK Energy minister Michael Shanks who told a gathering of senior business, energy and infrastructure leaders in Edinburgh that Scotland is in a “unique position” to build on the expertise developed in the North Sea oil and gas sector.

Mr Swinney said the potential capital value of the Scottish offshore wind market could be around £100 billion.

Significantly, he spoke of developing close links with markets in Europe which are seeking cleaner fuels and the need for the continent to seek sources of energy that do not rely on Russia and other volatile states,.

“Our geographic location not only provides us with naturally occurring strong winds, it places us on the doorstep of large European markets with existing deep sea ports infrastructure,” he told the Global Offshore Wind Investment Forum.

He said Scotland has already gained a significant first-mover advantage in the development of floating offshore wind. In 2017, Scotland became home to the world’s first commercial floating wind farm, and n 2022 held the world’s largest leasing round for floating offshore wind, resulting in 20 projects with seabed option agreements.  Fourteen of these are floating wind projects.

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