In a former primary school on the island of Mull next month, Scottish Power Renewables will hold a public consultation to explain why it’s building a vast wind farm between the island and Colonsay that’s large enough to power two million homes. Some of the islanders could be forgiven for asking a question that’s on the lips of many in the wider population: What is the benefit of offshore wind?​ Three years ago when Crown Estate Scotland launched ScotWind, one of the world’s largest offshore wind projects, the answer to this question was often framed as part of the fight to tackle climate change.​ This remains as true as it was then. Cut through the misinformation peddled by anti-net zero zealots (that climate change is a fiction and offshore wind turbines causes whale stranding) and the science shows that greenhouse gas emissions are threatening our planet and we need to shift rapidly to renewable energy.​ Wind power – invented in Scotland by James Blyth at his Aberdeenshire home in 1887 – works well in the windswept waters of the North Sea. Green energy delivered by offshore wind delivered 17 per cent of the UK’s energy needs in 2023. That share rose last month when Scottish Secretary Ian Murray switched on developer Ocean Winds’ Moray West wind farm off the coast of Buckie.​ Yet the world is a very different place from three years ago. While the public broadly agrees with the need to tackle climate change, it is a fragile conviction, eroded by pocketbook concerns about the cost of living and access to basic services. A recent poll by Octopus Energy showed that 70 per cent of those who in principle support the energy transition would withdraw it if bills went up.​ “Public perception is the biggest challenge our industry has right now,” Dhara Vyas, chief executive of Energy UK told a renewable energy conference in Glasgow yesterday.​ People are also tired of hearing about solutions that have yet to be visible to them. Offshore wind faces the twin challenge of optics and timelines. A typical offshore wind farm takes a decade to become operational, and the supporting infrastructure needed, such as port upgrades, are only visible to adjacent communities.​ This is where some existential politics is almost certain to intrude. Reform UK’s plan to “attack, hinder, delay” about £1 billion of renewable energy projects in Lincolnshire could be a foretaste of what offshore wind may face in Scotland as the Holyrood hustings ramp up ahead of next year’s election.​ There is a worrying global context too. Jonathan Cole, chairman of the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), told the conference that multilateral bodies such as the UN, the G20, World Bank and the IMF were being “systematically discredited or even vandalised” in a way that will cause significant harm to the energy transition. And there is Trump, whose history with opposition to “windmills” visible from his Aberdeenshire golf course precedes by decade the ban on new US offshore wind projects he ordered days after taking office.​ This is why the offshore wind industry must get on nothing less than a war footing to make its case to communities and the public with a fresh narrative. This must be “less about evangelism on climate, and much more about the real stuff,” as Chris Stark, clean power lead in Ed Miliband’s energy department, told the conference.​ It has been done before. In India, prime minister Narendra Modi has framed ambitious plans to double renewable energy in terms of jobs and economic empowerment, while South Africa has embraced private sector investment in renewable power to reverse persistent power cuts that were crippling job creation and hurting the economy.​ Paradoxically, the fact that offshore wind is smarting from an annus horribilis may help galvanise action. Inflation, supply chain pressures and geopolitical turmoil meant that the amount of global offshore wind capacity commissioned last year was 26 per cent down on 2023, according to GWEC. The shock suspension last week of an offshore wind farm project in England by Orsted, the Danish developer, has been part of what Stark admitted had been a “Force 9 gale of events around us”.​ Fortunately, there is no lack of material for this fresh narrative. An enormous amount is happening that demonstrates the potential for offshore wind to drive re-industrialisation, especially in the Highlands, where most of Scotland’s offshore wind is clustering.​ Offshore wind accounts for the largest share of “regional economic opportunities” worth £100bn for the Highlands and Islands in a report published this week commissioned by Highlands and Islands Enterprise.​ Offshore wind still carries the promise of re-industrialising parts of Scotland that have been passed by for too long. But the industry must get out there and tell its story before communities – like those on Mull – no longer give it the benefit of the doubt. Jeremy Grant is a freelance writer and editor and former Financial Times journalist