The UK’s Offshore Wind Growth Partnership (OWGP) has launched a GBP 3 million (around EUR 3.5 million) funding programme available for UK offshore wind supply chain companies with a focus on projects in the offshore wind consenting and site development process.
Innovation grants of between GBP 25,000 and GBP 100,000 are available for projects focused on commercialising technologies, products and services that will accelerate offshore wind site development during the consenting phase.
Potential activities include (but are not limited to) site selection, screening/scoping, surveying, impact assessment and ongoing monitoring and mitigation.
The grants are also available to UK companies that are already active in the supply chain or seeking to diversify into offshore wind.
Funds will be allocated on a competitive basis, with successful proposals demonstrating near-to-market or market-ready solutions and a clear ambition for growth in the sector.
Eligible applicants will be able to request up to GBP 100,000 in a single grant application to cover up to 50 per cent of the total project budget.
One of the innovative SMEs that successfully secured OWGP grant funding in 2019 and 2020 is Cognitive Business.
‘’Without the OWGP’s funding and support, Cognitive would not have been able to innovate an important A.I. technology that has been shown to deliver real value through critical decision-making support in the challenging and complex offshore environment, and gain traction within the industry,” said Ty Burridge-Oakland , Managing Director of Cognitive Business.
This latest tranche of funding builds on the GBP 6 million (around EUR 7 million) already allocated across four separate funding competitions launched in the last 18 months.
This May, OWGP launched a funding call with a total of GBP 4.2 million (around EUR 4.8 million) available for UK offshore wind supply chain companies in grant funding and tailored business support.
OWGP funding calls are complemented by business transformation programmes including the Wind Expert Support Toolkit (WEST) and the GBP 1.5 million Sharing in Growth (SiG) programme.