The Innovate UK package includes:
- an initial £10 million Offshore Wind Innovation Programme competition
- a new £5 million Wind Innovation Hub incorporating a £2 million accelerator fund
- support for phase one of NCC’s Large Structures Innovation Centre (LSIC), backed by £10 million from Innovate UK alongside a further £2 million from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero
Together, the initiatives aim to accelerate the best UK innovators into growing domestic and global supply chains and help maintain the UK’s global leadership in offshore wind.
Offshore Wind Innovation Programme
A key element of the package is the recently launched Offshore Wind Innovation Programme, supporting high-potential businesses to develop new technologies, scale their businesses and compete internationally.
Innovate UK has committed an initial £10 million through the programme’s first competition, with successful projects due to be announced later this year.
The programme focuses on key technology areas identified within the Offshore Wind Industrial Growth Plan as representing the biggest opportunity for the UK, including:
- advanced turbine technology
- next-generation foundations and substructures
- future electrical systems and cables
- smart environmental services
- innovation in installation, operations and maintenance
Wind Innovation Hub
Complementing the programme is a new £5 million Wind Innovation Hub, which will bring together industry, government and innovators to better align offshore wind research, development and commercialisation activity across the UK.
As part of the hub, a new Innovation Accelerator fund will provide up to £2 million of targeted technical support to high-growth companies entering or operating in the offshore wind sector.
It aims to help companies move more quickly from innovation to commercial deployment.
The hub will provide a national platform for offshore wind innovation and scale-up.
The hub will be funded by Innovate UK and delivered through a partnership between the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult and the High Value Manufacturing Catapult.
It will be led by NCC and the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland.
NCC’s Large Structures Innovation Centre
Based on the Isle of Wight, the LSIC open-access facility will enable industry to design, develop and de-risk next-generation manufacturing methods for large structures at full industrial scale, starting with wind energy.
Vestas has been announced as the centre’s first industry launch partner, deepening its collaboration with NCC on sustainable blade innovation.
LSIC strengthens the UK’s ability to build, retain and grow capability in essential clean energy supply chains, helping ensure that innovation developed in the UK is also manufactured and deployed in the UK.
Turning breakthrough ideas into globally competitive companies
Rob Saunders, Director Clean Energy, Innovate UK said:
This is a coordinated package of support and it shows we’re putting our new strategic direction into action.
We are backing the UK’s deep and hard tech sectors, providing funding, infrastructure and connections that innovators need to turn breakthrough ideas into globally competitive companies.
By embedding innovation across our offshore wind industry, we aim to create conditions for ambitious innovators to grow and thrive here in the UK while strengthening clean energy supply chains and driving net zero progress.
Our future energy system
Minister for Energy, Michael Shanks, said:
Offshore wind is the backbone of our future energy system.
By backing British innovation, we can go further and faster in building a system that protects families and businesses from fossil fuel price shocks.
This is an exciting package of measures from Innovate UK that will help businesses grow, support jobs, boost manufacturing and speed up the transition to clean, homegrown power we control.
Unlocking large scale industrial activity
Lynne McIntosh-Grieve, Wind Innovation Hub Programme Director, said:
Only by working collaboratively, and pulling together all the various strands of expertise available to us, can we take the steps needed to deliver maximum economic benefit for the UK from offshore wind.
By aligning with the areas of focus outlined in the Offshore Wind Industrial Growth Plan, the Wind Innovation Hub will pull through innovations and technologies towards commercialisation.
By combining offshore wind industry know how, with industrial manufacturing expertise, we can deliver the innovations that will unlock large scale industrial activity for the sector.
Major new UK innovation asset
Jo Dally, Chief Business Officer at NCC said:
We’re proud to establish LSIC as a major new UK innovation asset to help develop and scale the next generation of offshore wind technologies.
It will strengthen OEM and supply chain capability, help cement the UK’s position as a leader in clean energy innovation and ensure more of the value created by this growing sector is realised in the UK.