UK: Carbon Trust Offshore Wind Accelerator to Reduce Costs

The Carbon Trust Offshore Wind Accelerator is a £40m collaborative RD&D project to reduce the costs of offshore wind by 10%.

Run in partnership with 8 developers that have 30GW of licensed development capacity in the UK the team is working across four key areas; foundations, access, electrical systems and array design.

The team recently reached an agreement with Mainstream Renewable Power and DONG Energy to demonstrate one of the four leading foundation designs – Keystone Engineering’s ‘Twisted Jacket’ to support a met mast at the Hornsea site. This will be the first structure to be installed in the UK’s Round 3 sites, and is a significant endorsement of the potential of the structure to reduce the costs of wind farms in deeper waters.

The team recently presented at the RenewableUK Offshore Wind conference, updating the UK industry on progress on the access competition and will be presenting in Germany on the competition to develop new lower cost foundations.
[mappress]
Source: carbontrust, July 6, 2011