It didn’t get much attention, but in November the Scottish Government became a joint owner in an offshore wind development for the first time.

The Pentland is a proposed floating wind farm off the coast of Dounreay. It’s potential capacity of 100MW is a fraction of the 4,100MW Berwick Bank wind farm, and smaller than any of the 20 projects leased by the Scottish Government.

Yet it should now be seen as one of the most important projects in the pipeline.

Instead of the future profits flowing straight to the investment firm CIP, we will now see a share come back to the public purse. As a joint owner, there should even be scope to promote domestic supply chains and good quality work during its construction – not something we’ve seen enough of from the wind industry so far.

It is a break from the Scottish Government’s normal approach, fixated on the wish list of investment firms and multinational energy companies. This is what we and many others have been demanding for years, and we told them how to do it. There might be members of the Scottish Parliament left a little confused though. As recently as April, the Scottish Government said a national energy company in large-scale energy generation wasn’t possible under devolution – so what’s changed?

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The investment in the Pentland wind farm came alongside the UK Government’s GB Energy and National Wealth Fund. A generous interpretation would be that the UK and Scottish Government have shared a vision and saw it through........

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