The Supergen Offshore Renewable Energy Hub has awarded UK universities with nearly GBP 1 million to support research projects on offshore renewable energy in the first round of its Flexible Fund.
The Flexible Fund has been established to allow UK researchers to assess a number of key offshore renewables engineering challenges.
Its aim is supporting projects that complement existing research, fill gaps or add cross-cutting activities to explore the transfer of research findings between sectors.
Research funded within the first fund call ranges from new technologies for autonomous inspection of offshore wind farms to advanced satellite observations to improve the performance of offshore renewable installations.
“The Supergen ORE Hub first call for Flexible Funding has received a great deal of interest, with a large number of high-quality research proposals submitted,” said Deborah Greaves , Director of the Supergen ORE Hub.
“We are delighted to award this funding aimed at enabling researchers, in collaboration with industry partners, to deliver fundamental research that will advance the development of the offshore renewable energy sector.”
The Supergen ORE Hub was established in July last year with GBP 5 million from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and was awarded a further GBP 4 million this June.
The hub gathers a national consortium led by the University of Plymouth to bring together a network of academic, industrial and policy stakeholders to champion and maintain the UK’s expertise in offshore renewable energy.