UK Government Reveals GBP 5m Found to Spark Offshore Wind Innovation

In the UK Renewables Roadmap published in July, DECC announced funding of up to £30m – subject to value for money assessments – for offshore wind innovation. DECC expects to fund two schemes under this programme, one of which is the Offshore Wind Component Technologies Development and Demonstration scheme. DECC has provisionally allocated £15m to this scheme and expects to use that funding to run two calls for proposals.

The first, Call of the Offshore Wind Component Technologies Development and Demonstration Scheme, is now open to innovators to bid for support for the development and demonstration of innovative component technologies across the offshore wind system.

With a call budget of around £5m capital, the funding will help companies with novel ideas that could further improve offshore wind systems, for example enhanced blades, alternative foundation designs and technologies, that can simplify installation and maintenance processes.

In July 2011, the UK Renewable Energy Roadmap announced the establishment of an industry-led task force to set out an action plan to reduce the costs of offshore to £100/MWh by 2020. It is expected that projects funded through this scheme will complement the work of the task force, by demonstrating new technology and components to improve reliability and efficiency of offshore wind turbines. DECC intends to launch a larger innovation scheme in 2012, and the outputs from the Task Force​ will directly input to the design and focus of this scheme.

 Greg Barker, Climate Change Minister, said:

“This new fund will help to nurture some of the best ideas to improve the performance of wind turbines, from their design to their operation and even how they’re maintained. Making turbines work more efficiently will bring down the costs of offshore wind making them attractive to build and helping to meet our climate goals more affordably. Offshore wind not only makes sense for our energy security and the environment, but the economy too, bringing jobs and economic growth.”

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Offshore WIND staff, November 22, 2011; Image: decc