A MAJOR £5m wind farm contract could provide the springboard to £5bn-worth of work and an extra 2,000 jobs for Birkenhead shipyard Cammell Laird.

The yard announced a deal yesterday, with energy company RWE npower renewables, to provide port facilities for its 160-turbine Gwynt y Môr wind farm off the North Wales coast.

It is the yard’s first foray into a sector it recognises as ripe for huge growth over the coming years and capable of supporting thousands of highly skilled jobs.

Cammell Laird was too late to bid for construction work with RWE and will, instead, provide support for the installation operation lasting until 2014.

It has already invested the £5m from RWE into new jetty facilities at Birkenhead, where monopiles – the foundation units sunk into the seabed to support turbines – will be shipped in from Europe for storage before being transferred to special support vessels prior to installation.

But Cammell Laird says the contract will enable it to prove its credentials in an industry estimated to be worth £75bn to the UK by 2020.

Shipyard business development director David Williams said the West coast will command £15bn of that, which could mean £5bn of work for the yard and 2,000 jobs.

Energy company Centrica plans to build a 1,000-turbine windfarm off the Isle of Man, and he said the yard will bid for construction contracts to build 30 huge seaborne substations at £6m each, as well as 1,000 foundation units for turbines, at a cost of £2m each.

Mr Williams said Cammell Laird’s massive construction hall has the capacity to build eight substations at a time.