Monthly Newsletter from the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult
JULY, 2020
Latest News, Insight and Analysis
Hello and welcome to the July edition of Re-Energise Online!
This month, we announced a new Energy Transition Alliance with the Oil and Gas Technology Centre to accelerate the development of offshore renewables and the decarbonisation of oil and gas production to deliver net-zero. The Offshore Wind Growth Partnership announced a £2m support package for the UK supply chain. Our Operations and Maintenance Centre of Excellence is set to host a virtual event to provide the very latest views, innovations and vision for offshore wind O&M and we published the Summer edition of our tri-annual Re-Energise magazine, focusing on 'Powering the Green Economy'. Our Data and Digitalisation Lead writes about the value of adopting Machine Learning in offshore renewable energy. Finally, expressions of interest are now open for the Fit 4 Offshore Renewables - New Anglia programme for businesses in the Norfolk and Suffolk region.
Contact us at info@ore.catapult.org.uk or via your usual Catapult contact to discuss ways in which we can help and support you.
New Energy Transition Alliance to Pave the way to Clean, Green Energy
Hywind Tampen (Credit: Illustration/Equinor)
ORE Catapult has joined forces with the Oil and Gas Technology Centre (OGTC) in an ambitious £10m collaboration aimed at accelerating the development of offshore renewables and decarbonising oil and gas production to deliver net-zero, maximising UK economic benefit and retaining energy security.
The Energy Transition Alliance is set to deliver next-generation energy technologies and accelerate the UK’s transition to a net-zero future, presenting enormous opportunities for knowledge skills and supply chain transfer.
UK Minister of Energy and Clean Growth, Kwasi Kwarteng, said: “Collaboration across the energy sector will be essential to achieving our climate goals, and it is great to see the Energy Transition Alliance working towards developing new technologies, creating green jobs and helping the transition to a cleaner future.”
OWGP Announces £2m Support Package for UK Supply Chain
Galloper Offshore Wind Farm (Credit: Innogy)
The Offshore Wind Growth Partnership (OWGP) is launching a new £2m package of funding and business support activities for the UK offshore wind supply chain.
The package includes two new funding calls totalling £600k, as well as intensive business transformation support activities through the £1.5m Sharing in Growth Programme.
Martin Whitmarsh, Chair of the OWGP, said: “The offshore wind sector has shown remarkable resilience to the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic. The UK has a fantastic opportunity to use this as a springboard to a green economic recovery. Many engineering sectors have been badly hit by the pandemic and support from OWGP can ensure that the best of UK engineering from all industries can develop UK IP in a sector that is set for strong global growth.”
For more information on the new funding opportunities available, there will be an OWGP Funding Calls Briefing webinar on Tuesday 4th August 2:00pm - 3:00pm.
Operations and Maintenance Centre of Excellence: A Vision for Smart O&M
Join our Operations & Maintenance Centre of Excellence team and industry-leading guest speakers for a virtual session that will provide the very latest views, innovations and vision for offshore wind O&M.
Our first online virtual event will deliver three sessions in areas that will play a key role in supporting the success and vision of O&M: Inspection, Maintenance and Repair; O&M Decarbonisation; Next Generation Operations and Control.
To coincide with the virtual event, we are officially opening our Port of Grimsby facility, located at the heart of offshore wind O&M. From our new space, we will be able to engage and collaborate with industry, supporting their key innovation challenges by accelerating technology innovation from across the UK supply chain.
Re-Energise Summer 2020: Powering the Green Recovery
The latest issue of our tri-annual Re-Energise magazine is now available to read. This edition focuses on ‘Powering the Green Recovery’ as we look to offshore renewable energy to build back the UK economy stronger and greener than ever.
This edition of Re-Energise looks at how the UK can kickstart the green economic recovery with a focus on innovative solutions in accelerating the energy transition, advancing green hydrogen production and investing in big data and robotic solutions in offshore renewable energy.
Machine Learning is a disruptive digital technology that, if deployed effectively in the wind industry, would enable predictive maintenance, automate blade defect detection, improve the accuracy of production forecasts, and many more valuable innovations.
Machine Learning is a branch of artificial intelligence, geared towards large datasets that finds and exploits patterns in data for purposes such as making predictions or clustering related data.
However, it’s a technology that’s massively underutilised in the offshore wind sector compared to other data-heavy industries, such as health or finance.
ORE Catapult’s Data and Digitalisation Lead, Conaill Soraghan, examines why this is the case, and what we at ORE Catapult are doing to help the industry unlock the value of this promising technology.
F4OR New Anglia - Expressions of Interest Now Open
To help facilitate the UK's green economic recovery, ORE Catapult in collaboration with HVM Catapult’sNuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (Nuclear AMRC) has established the Fit 4 Offshore Renewables (F4OR) business improvement programme. It is a journey of business excellence and sector specific capability building to support the development of a competent, capable and competitive UK offshore renewable energy supply chain, maximising the economic opportunity, both domestically and globally.
Following the success of the Scottish pilot programme, the first regional programme will begin in the New Anglia LEP region in September 2020. The jointly funded F4OR programme, with ORE Catapult and the New Anglia LEP, offers 10 places for innovators in the region and looks to support the booming local energy supply chain to fuel the growth in offshore renewables and stimulate supply chain mobility and transition during the green economic recovery.
Sign up below for the F4OR - Expression of Interest - New Anglia form for the New Anglia programme starting in September 2020.
