“On a good day, 100% of the electricity in Scotland is generated by the wind”

The port of Aberdeen, on the North Sea coast in northeast Scotland, has long been dubbed the “oil capital of Europe”… but times have changed. Offshore reserves are dwindling, climate change threatens the planet, it’s time for renewables. The Dutch physicist Erik Dalhuijsen is a former engineer in the oil industry who arrived in the country thirty years ago to drill for black gold. He has since changed course to now advise offshore wind investors.

That day, he embarked on a boat to reach a wind farm made up of eleven turbines installed six years ago by Swedish investors three kilometers from the coast: “When these wind turbines were installed, they were the biggest in the world. People can see them from the coast. It’s a way of showing that things have changed. And I think that’s very good”he explains to the magazine “We, the Europeans” (replay).

“We have the solution, here, around us. Let’s do it!”

These very impressive wind turbines are 191 meters high: “On a good day, 100% of the electricity in Scotland is generated by the wind. Here, these wind turbines power 50,000 homes”specifies the engineer who participates without qualms in the country’s energy transition, of which 97% of the electricity produced is renewable energy.

“I don’t feel guilty. I was just doing my job, my best. The problem is that the oil industry is still there. We have to get rid of it. We have the solution, here, around us. Let’s do it!” says Erik Dalhuijsen. He decided to stay in Scotland where his skills in physicist in the petroleum industry are useful for renewables because they are perfectly transferable.

> Replays of France Télévisions news magazines are available on the Franceinfo website and its mobile application (iOS & Android), “Magazines” section.