A bit of a departure, this one. And certainly not what I advertised last Saturday. Though that element does figure in this bigger picture.
Rather than focus exclusively on Bute’s windfarm plans in Wales, the infiltration of the Welsh political class (especially, but not exclusively, the Labour party), or alleged links to those who sent the tanks into Tianmen Square, I’m going to look into a possibility suggested to me by someone with a keen interest in Bute and associated companies.
In this piece, after the first section, I’m going to look into the companies named as being involved with a new venture at Port Talbot in this press release from Catapult Offshore Renewable Energy. Which seems to tie in with the ‘Celtic Freeport‘, split between Port Talbot and the Haven Waterway.
From one angle, the plan we’re going to look at seems to be, make wind turbine body parts in the electric arc furnaces promised for Port Talbot, from scrap metal, then put them together in Pembrokeshire before mooring them offshore.
That might be the assumption to make, but the press release from Catapult Offshore Renewable Energy clearly states “onshore wind turbines“.
Which might suggest confusion.
Whatever, the companies named in the Catapult press release are Tata Steel UK, RWE, Bute Energy, Hutchinson Engineering, and Ledwood. So I’ll deal with them in the order they’re mentioned.
But let’s start with Catapult itself.
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OFFSHORE RENEWABLE ENERGY (ORE) CATAPULT
This outfit, the one apparently pulling it all together, looks to be an extension of Innovate UK, a government-funded body. Google AI says this:
Innovate UK provides substantial funding to ORE Catapult to drive offshore renewable energy innovation, including a recent £85.6 million capital investment for testing facilities.
Note, again: “offshore renewable energy“, yet as we’ve seen, the statement from Catapult clearly says “onshore wind turbines“.
That said, Catapult claims a presence in Pembroke Dock. In a building otherwise known as the Bridge Innovation Centre.
There’s not much more to tell about ORE Catapult, so we’ll move on.
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TATA STEEL UK
Indian company Tata Steel is the owner of Port Talbot steelworks. The coal-based blast furnaces have closed and it’s promised they’ll be replaced with a £1.25 billion electric arc furnace. Due to be fully operational by the end of next year.
The project has already received £500 million in UK government funding.
Which means that Tata’s role seems fairly clear. It will produce the steel needed for the onshore and offshore wind turbines, from scrap, much of which will be sourced abroad, as will be explained in the section about Ledwood.
UPDATE 20.04.2026: This article on the feasibility of scrap metal electric arc furnaces appeared in the Western Mail, taken from The Conversation. The authors seems to argue that the supply chain for scrap steel doesn’t exist, and UK electricity prices might make the whole project unviable.
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RWE
As many of you will know, RWE is a huge German company involved in ‘renewable’ energy. Let’s also remember that RWE is a big player in Wales.
RWE is the largest power producer and renewable energy generator in Wales, with more than 3GW of energy across 12 sites. Brechfa Forest West Wind Farm comprises of 28 turbines – enough to power 40,000 homes. The site has produced over 1.05TWh of energy since it was commissioned in 2018.
RWE’s Head of Onshore Development: Wales & England is Eleri Davies. She also sits on the UK government’s Onshore Wind Industry Taskforce. As we are reminded in this press release from her company:
As a member of the Government’s newly created Onshore Wind Industry Taskforce, it was incredibly valuable to show the Prime Minister and First Minister how RWE works with and for local communities, harnessing homegrown talent and supporting local communities.
UK Operational Manager for RWE is Nia Griffiths. So there’s a definite Welsh flavour to RWE. At least in senior staff. Of course the money goes back to Germany.
And it seems RWE already has a presence in Port Talbot at the Baglan Innovation Centre. While in 2022 it struck a deal with Associated British Ports, owners of Port Talbot docks, an agreement that also covers Milford Haven.
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BUTE ENERGY
Bute Energy appears for obvious reasons. First, wanting to plaster rural Wales with wind turbines and pylons. Second, because this company has bought up ‘Welsh’ Labour and is not without influence within the party at UK level.
But for the purposes of this piece, I think we should concentrate on warehouses.
I touched on this subject briefly with a post back in August 2024 after receiving information from Scotland. It’s here in Parabola Bute Energy, Scottish Echoes. The Bute Boys, using the company Windward Titan Ltd, bought a huge warehouse (below) near Glasgow, then sold it three years later, for double the price paid, to the Lothian Pension Fund; essentially, Labour-run Edinburgh City Council.
Does Bute getting money from Labour-controlled pension funds sound familiar?
Further information received last month, from a different source, suggested Bute companies – often under the ‘Windward’ label – have quite a few warehouses ” . . . in Wales and Scotland filled to the rafters with BESS and pylon materials“.
These have been bought with the help of private bank Brown Shipley & Co Ltd, ultimately owned by the Al Thani family, which also owns Qatar.
I dealt with this a few weeks back in The Windward-Bute Empire, Fresh Insights.
So the question is, why would Bute need all this space, and why are some of these warehouses chock full of pylon components and other equipment for onshore wind turbine installations?
Also note, the insider who contacted me last month made no mention of the actual turbines. Neither towers nor blades. For which I might have an explanation.
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HUTCHINSON ENGINEERING
This company has also appeared on this blog quite recently. In a piece I put out in January. (Skip the first section.)
I started out back then by wondering, in a post on X, why a company in Cornwall called Inyanga Marine Energy Group had received £2,000,000 from our wonderful, and now thankfully departed, ‘Welsh Government’.
The man behind Inyanga, Richard James Parkinson, has other companies named HydroWing and Sangoma. All hoping to generate power from wave energy. Explained in the earlier blog piece I’ve linked to. But there seems to be no money, apart from public funding, and little sign of activity.
Though I did find this piece in the Falmouth Packet, which introduces Hutchinson.
Inyanga Marine Energy Group, based in Penryn, has tasked Hutchinson Engineering with constructing its HydroWing tidal energy device.
The 20 MW HydroWing tidal energy array will be deployed at Morlais, off Anglesey in Wales.
Naturally, my attention then turned to Hutchinson Engineering of Cheshire. Here’s the Companies House entry. You’ll see that ownership rests with Modernuser Ltd. In turn owned by Dean Clark Drinkwater.
And here’s Dean, a fan of both Starmer and Miliband!
What’s more, Drinkwater has also been appointed to the UK Government’s Onshore Wind Industry Taskforce, chaired by ‘Mad Ed’ Miliband.
It would appear that Dean is another who’s well in with the Labour party.
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LEDWOOD
Ledwood Mechanical Engineering Ltd, based in Pembroke Dock, is owned by Ledwood Protective Coatings Ltd, which is in turn owned by Nicholas David Revell, and may rely to a great extent on a loan from the ‘Welsh Government’-controlled Development Bank of Wales.
Another Revell company is Ledwood Holdings Ltd. Revell has a further company, LSM Holdings Ltd. (‘Ledwood Scrap Metals’?)
I suggest that name due to this reference in the LSM accounts, and where it leads.
Nick Revell, also gets a mention in this press release from January 2025 from the Wales Office, not ‘Welsh Government’. Again, the “Celtic Freeport” is mentioned.
Bluecap Resources Ltd, highlighted in the clip above, is based in Newport. But with its R&D in Penryn, Cornwall where, you’ve just read, we also find Inyanga, builder of wave energy machines, and beneficiary of ‘Welsh Government’ largesse.
The company is owned by:
. . . a consortium of European shareholders from the natural resources industry, both corporate and individual, including two publicly-quoted companies . . .
(Here are the Bluecap Resources shareholders.)
Yet the website tells us very little. But if we turn to the filings with Companies House we see big share issues in recent years – all in US dollars.
Bluecap is in the business of “extraction and recovery“. That it uses US dollars suggests to me it conducts much of its business outside of the UK. A belief reinforced by the company Bluecap Poland Ltd, formerly known as Bluecap Turkey Ltd.
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THE THEORY
Someone who’s given the consortium some thought has suggested to me a theory. Which, after doing some research of my own, I find both elegant and plausible.
It all hinges on the electric arc furnace at Port Talbot. On it being built, and then on that furnace using scrap material. This explains Tata Steel’s presence in the consortium.
The scrap will be provided by Ledwood-Bluecap. And will almost certainly come from outside of the UK. That’s why they’re involved.
That scrap material will be smelted at Port Talbot, a magical process to transform it into the “UK Steel” promised in the headline of the Energy-pedia article.
Next, it will be knocked into the shapes and sections desired for 250 metre tall wind turbines by Hutchinson Engineering of Cheshire, who might set up an operation in Wales, or co-operate with a locally-based company.
If my Bute source is correct about the warehouses being “filled to the rafters with BESS and pylon materials”, then Windward-Bute can supply pylons and the Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS). This is one reason why Bute is involved.
RWE might provide the motors and other mechanisms required by the wind turbines. Then again, as a major player, RWE may be thinking ahead to replacing its clapped-out turbines, even erecting new ones.
Alternatively, the blades might come from somewhere else.
For the largest manufacturer of turbine blades in Europe is Danish company Vestas. A director of Vestas is former Danish PM Helle Thorning-Schmidt. Her alter ego is Mrs Kinnock, for she’s married to Stephen Kinnock MP, in whose Aberafan Maesteg constituency we find Port Talbot steelworks.
Furthermore, Vestas has a 25% stake in Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP), which seems to be Bute Energy’s main financial backer.
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CONCLUSION
Let’s start by remembering that in the Ore Catapult press release we read that the consortium involved is “largely based in Wales“.
Yet Tata Steel is an Indian company. RWE German. Bute Energy is Scottish. Hutchinson Engineering is an English company. Ledwood and Bluecap have addresses in Newport, but source their scrap metal from God knows where.
Pushing this lot as Welsh is like describing the German army in September 1939 as Polish because it was “largely based in Poland“.
And as if that idiocy wasn’t enough, remember that almost all the electricity that’ll be generated will go to England!
If the theory is correct, or only partly correct, we can clearly see who’s going to benefit from turning scrap metal into wind turbine parts, and who’ll make money from supplying whatever else is needed.
It’ll be the same faces that have been ripping Wales off for too long.
There might be a few hundred jobs at Port Talbot, small compensation for the thousands lost. A few hauliers might get contracts. The turbines and pylons will be erected by specialist crews brought in from outside.
But let’s not forget – it might keep Kinnock Jnr in a job.
Yet we’ll have to put up with the ugly bloody turbines and pylons, and you can bet your sweet life that whatever the colour of the ‘Welsh Government’ after May 7 – we’ll be paying out plenty in public money.
All done so that demented individuals in Plaid Cymru, for whom politics is all gestures, who prefer ‘positions’ over policies that would benefit the long-suffering Welsh people, can claim that Wales is a “world leader” – in being exploited.
For God’s sake, don’t vote for these clowns!
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© Royston Jones 2026
