Monthly Newsletter from the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult

Latest News, Insights and Analysis

Hello and welcome to the April edition of ReEnergise Online!

In our latest issue, we welcome 28 new businesses to our Fit 4 Offshore Renewables regional programmes, focusing on business improvement and supply chain growth in North East Scotland and North East England. Our Senior Strategy Analyst discusses alternative end-of-life management strategies to decommissioning offshore wind turbines in a bid to reduce the carbon footprint of the industry. Members of the Catapult Network, including ORE Catapult, Energy Systems Catapult and the High Value Manufacturing Catapult, have produced a thought leadership piece that explores how the UK can accelerate its hydrogen economy. Finally, you can learn more about the types of data on cables that our ELECTRODE project will gather in the latest blog below.

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. 

1. Twenty-eight UK businesses prepare to get fit for offshore renewables 
2. The race to reduce the wind industry's carbon footprint
3. Catapult Network thought leadership - Accelerating a UK hydrogen economy
4. Subsea cable failures: What we know and what we don't

Twenty-Eight UK Businesses Prepare to Get Fit for Offshore Renewables

Twenty-eight UK businesses are ready to reap the rewards from our industry-leading Fit 4 Offshore Renewables (F4OR) business improvement and supply chain growth programme as the latest cohorts for the North East Scotland and North East England regions are announced.

The 12-month programme will prepare them to compete for, and secure, contracts at UK offshore wind farms by making them more attractive to offshore renewables’ project developers. 

The F4OR programme offers the opportunity for offshore wind developers to engage, contribute to and benefit from an initiative that encourages and supports improved supply chain performance. F4OR provides additional industry engagement opportunities for those already in the industry and promotes the cross-sector transfer of technologies to stimulate supply chain mobility and transition during the green economic recovery.

The Race to Reduce the Carbon Footprint of the Wind Industry

As offshore wind development is accelerating and the existing fleet is aging, the time has come to consider alternative and more sustainable options for offshore wind sites as they approach the end of their operational lives.

Our Senior Strategy Analyst, Angeliki Spyroudi, has produced two Analysis and Insights papers to explore alternative end-of-life management solutions for offshore wind turbines, particularly looking at which of these has the lowest carbon footprint and environmental impact:

1. End-of-life planning in offshore wind

2. Carbon footprint of offshore wind farm components

Angeliki suggests moving from a linear to circular economy will help to reduce the carbon footprint of the offshore wind industry as well as provide immense economic opportunities for the UK. Recycling turbines can reduce CO2 emissions by 35% compared with manufacturing components entirely from primary raw materials. However, recycling is not the only approach that can reduce the industry’s carbon footprint, with extending the lifetime of wind farms through proactive O&M and repowering also deemed appropriate avenues to explore further.

Catapult Network Thought Leadership - Accelerating a UK Hydrogen Economy

This month, the Catapult Network released a thought leadership piece in a bid to answer the question - how will we decarbonise the most challenging areas of the UK economy?

Our Research and Innovation Director, Dr. Steve Wyatt, co-wrote the piece alongside members of the Energy Systems Catapult and the National Composites Centre, part of the High Value Manufacturing Catapult. The authors explore the need to break away from simply innovating in traditional sector-driven silos and focus on developing new connectivity across industries and nations to realise the opportunity and position the UK as global leader in developing hydrogen technologies.

Read the thought leadership piece below to find out how the Catapult Network is committed to making this a reality for the UK through the creation of a collaborative special purpose vehicle – The Hydrogen Innovation Initiative.

Subsea Cable Failures: What We Know and What We Don’t

“There are Known Knowns, and there are Known Unknowns”, as a well-known US Secretary of Defence once said. This is an excellent starting point for a discussion of subsea cable failures in the offshore wind sector, with emphasis on the Known Unknowns.

As we kick-start ELECTRODE, project lead Charlotte Strang-Moran explores the known unknowns of subsea cables, specifically how often cable failures actually occur. The data we gain from the ELECTRODE database will provide information on:

• Where and when cable failures are likely to happen (annual failure rate per kilometre of cable, failure rates per component and mean time between failures use of new technologies in addressing failures)
• Recurring causes of cable failures
• Effectiveness of protection systems and management strategies

For more information on how you can get involved, contact us at ELECTRODE@ore.catapult.org.uk.  We can also point you in the direction of our SME support programmes and funding streams for business and technology development.