BEIS awards nearly £32m to floating wind innovators

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) has awarded £31.6 million to projects to develop technologies for floating offshore wind farms.

The 11 successful projects will each receive grants of up £10 million as part of the Floating Offshore Wind Demonstration Programme, which will be matched by industry funding to bring the total investment to more than £60 million.

The largest beneficiary will be a project by SenseWind, Geodis, Xodus Group and the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult, which will receive £10 million for a project to combine a compact floating foundation with a novel anchoring system and advanced monitoring technology, which will allow maintenance to be performed offshore. A 2MW or larger turbine will be demonstrated in UK waters.

Energy minister Greg Hands said: “We are already a world leader in offshore wind and floating technology is key to unlocking the full potential of the seas around Britain.

“These innovative projects will help us expand renewable energy further and faster across the UK and help to reduce our exposure volatile global gas prices.”

The organisations to receive funding are:

• Copenhagen Offshore Partners, SSE Renewables, Maersk Supply Service Subsea and Bridon Bekaert Ropes Group – £9.67 million to develop and demonstrate new mooring technologies, cable protection, a floating turbine base design and an advanced digital monitoring system.
• JDR Cables and Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult – £1.61 million to develop and test electric cabling systems.
• Buoyant Production Technologies and the University of Southampton – £239,000 to demonstrate a design for supporting substation equipment connecting floating wind farms to the power grid.
• AWC Technology – £761,000 to develop an articulated wind turbine column designed to reduce construction, installation and maintenance costs.
• Reflex Marine, the University of Exeter, Bridon Bekaert Ropes Group and Wood Thilsted Partners – £882,000 to develop a novel anchoring system that will secure floating turbine cables to the seabed at a fraction of the weight of some existing anchors.
• London Marine Consultants and the University of Plymouth – £265,000 to bring to market a mooring system which will simplify the initial installation of floating turbines and enable simple disconnection when maintenance is required.
• Cerulean Winds – £826,000 to develop an integrated system between the mooring, floating foundation and wind turbine for deployment at an offshore oil and gas facility in the North Sea or West of Shetland.
• Aker Solutions – £690,000 to apply cable manufacturing techniques that simplify and cut the cost of installation and develop a subsea substation design.
• Trivane, London Marine Consultants, Keynvormorliftand and Ledwood – £3.27 million to develop a trimaran mounting system for wind turbines.

Note: All amounts have been rounded to three significant figures.

RenewableUK chief executive Dan McGrail commented: “Today’s announcement will help the UK to develop floating wind technology faster and bring down costs for consumers. The UK is currently the biggest market in the world for this cutting-edge technology and other countries are following our lead.

“Investing in innovation is vital to build up a UK supply chain that can meet the needs of our domestic market and seize the global opportunities that floating wind offers”.

Nick Molho, executive director at the Aldersgate Group, said: “Following on from the significant amount of offshore wind projects selected at the ScotWind Leasing round last week, today’s announcement is a reminder of how long-term targets and stable policy support can accelerate innovation across the renewables industry.”