Scotland continues promoting its very aggressive pro-wind position as a way of driving increased energy security, a green economy and mitigating climate change.

The latest development occurred last week when First Minister Alex Salmond and more than 30 senior energy industry leaders met in Aberdeen to talk about the oil and gas industries and the renewable power sector collaborating to advance Scotland’s transition to a low carbon economy.

“Scotland already, per head of population, has ten-times the renewable energy of England but as the industry moves offshore we have even more potential,” Salmond told the summit Friday.

Although still in its infancy, the idea of a future offshore North Sea supergrid might benefit by experiencing regulated financing through national transmission tariffs as well as having a single planner, code, and regulator.

Those are some of the preliminary answers that the Friends of the Supergrid (FOSG) have raised to deal with important issues that still need to be addressed, people attending the Grids 2010 conference in Berlin were told today.

Ana Aguado, the Chief Executive Officer of FOSG, said during a conference session called “Planning a North Sea Supergrid” that the creation of such an entity also needs to have an efficient supply chain and an adequate number of properly trained workers.

South Korea has confirmed it intends to become a major player in the offshore wind sector with an announcement last week that an $8.2 billion (€5.9 bn) wind farm will be built in the Yellow Sea.

With an eye to reducing its dependence on expensive imported fossil fuels, the nation will begin testing 20 5-MW wind turbines from various South Korean manufacturers by 2013. This will be followed by the installation of an additional 180 5-MW machine three years later and 300 more similar sized turbines by 2019.

“The plan is to make South Korea the world’s third-largest country in terms of offshore wind power generation,” Kang Nam-hoon, head of the Ministry of Knowledge Economy’s energy and climate change policy division, was reported as telling a press briefing.

The future for offshore wind power in the United Kingdom continues to attract government support with Tuesday’s announcement that Scotland has set up a €80 million investment fund to help secure its place in Europe’s rapidly developing offshore industry.

First Minister Alex Salmond announced that the fund — which, according to a press release, is designed to “strengthen port and manufacturing facilities and supply chain provision for manufacturing offshore wind turbines and related components” — at a RenewableUK conference in Glasgow.

“The offshore wind industry is seeking leadership and immediate support from government and the Scottish government is determined to provide that,” Salmond said.

Offshore wind power in the UK received a huge boost of confidence on Monday with announcements that a number of international energy companies were going ahead with plans to invest heavily in the growing sector.

That the announcements came less than a week after the government signaled it would provide about €68m for port upgrades despite massive cuts to programmes and personnel proves once again that offshore wind power is becoming a key part of a new green economy.

The Wall Street Journal reported that GE, Siemens, Mitsubishi and Gamesa said they will invest more than €450 million in the UK’s offshore wind sector after the government announced a funding package to upgrade British ports so that they could handle the next generation of offshore wind turbines.