Steel producer Corus will build a £31.5m ($49.2m) manufacturing plant in Teesside, England, to produce monopiles used to secure offshore wind turbines to the seabed.

Corus long products director Jon Bolton said the firm is now moving to establish its position in the emerging market.

The firm plans to redeploy and re-equip redundant buildings on its 3,000-acre Teesside site for monopile production and shipment of structures weighing as much as 650t.

Over the next ten years, the UK intends to generate 35GW of electricity – about 15% of the UK’s energy requirements.