A new report by the Offshore Wind Industry Council aims to guide innovation efforts across the offshore wind industry, by reviewing and prioritising areas where technological innovation could play a role in solving critical challenges – providing recommendations to industry and government on how these can be realised. While policy and business practices have a role in supporting offshore wind, this report analyses where work is needed from a technology-focused perspective.
This report, involving input from across industry, academia, and the public sector, was conducted by the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult on behalf of the Offshore Wind Industry Council.
The broad challenges faced by the sector assessed in this report include managing use of the marine space, reducing operational costs, maximising flexibility and storage of energy, sector decarbonisation and enabling the development of floating offshore wind.
Within these themes, three key areas were identified as requiring the most proactive intervention:
In order to drive innovation in these areas, the report highlights the need for increased funding over an extended time-period – at a scale comparable to other strategically important UK industries – and more significant efforts to share data across the industry.
Andrew Stornmonth-Darling, OWIC Innovation Workstream Lead and Floating Wind Programme Mannager at ORE Catapult said:
"One of the keys to securing the growth and expansion of the offshore wind sector in the years to come is how we can unlock the innovations that will keep the UK well placed to benefit from both the potential of offshore wind to help us reach Net Zero and secure the economic benefits from a futureproof UK supply chain. This report provides a holistic overview of the key innovation priorities linked to this future growth and recommendations on how the UK can make the most of the opportunity on offer.”
Laura Victoria Mejia, Industry Co-Chair of OWIC Innovation Workstream, said:
“As Working Group co-chair, I firmly believe in the importance of the industry working together to define the key innovation focus areas for the coming years. We need this understanding in order to see mass deployment, acceleration of development and to be able to reduce the levelised cost of energy. Developing technological solutions is a challenging process that requires support from the public sector and close engagement from industry, both of which I hope to see grow and strengthen in the future.”
