Ralph Torr, head of floating wind at the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult, discusses the Floating Offshore Wind Centre of Excellence.
Over the past three years, the ORE Catapult’s Floating Offshore Wind Centre of Excellence (FOW CoE) has been a driving force behind the rapid growth of floating wind, accelerating the commercialisation of the technology and cementing the UK’s role as the world’s leading floating wind market.
Supported by 15 of the world’s leading floating offshore wind developers, and working directly with the government, stakeholders, supply chain and the broader industry, it is an internationally recognised collaborative programme working to reduce the cost of floating offshore wind.
Since our launch at the end of 2019, we have accelerated and enhanced collaboration between industry and government to ensure that floating wind will facilitate the delivery
of a cost-effective net-zero, while creating economic opportunities across the UK and supporting the transition of skills, experience, products and services from the oil and gas sector.
The UK already leads the way in floating offshore wind. It is home to the first floating offshore wind farm in the world, Hywind Scotland, which was installed off Peterhead in Scotland in 2017, and has consistently delivered the highest capacity factor of any offshore wind farm in UK waters.
The UK also has the world’s largest pipeline of large-scale floating offshore projects, with a total of 18GW of lease areas awarded option agreements in the ScotWind leasing round in Scotland and up to 4GW of leasing opportunities in development in the Celtic Sea. Globally the floating offshore wind industry is also growing rapidly, with large project pipelines in development in Europe, North America and South East Asia.
To maximise this potential and maintain the UK’s leading global position, ORE Catapult’s FOW CoE is already achieving great success – and we’re only getting started!
Our work has already delivered significant benefits to the UK supply chain and its innovation landscape by securing more than £5.5 million of innovation investment in the UK. By bringing the world’s leading floating wind developers together to address common challenges and support the development of the supply chain, we’re helping to create a significant anchor for innovation, project and supply chain investment in the UK.
Our Floating Offshore Wind Cost Reduction Pathways Study has underpinned the implementation of the reformed Contracts for Difference (CfD) system, which for the first time allows floating wind to compete as a technology in its own right. We’ve also played a key role in supporting the establishment of the UK's first floating offshore wind deployment target by providing an explicit link between cost reduction and scale of deployment.
Most recently, the launch of our Strategic Infrastructure and Supply Chain Development report has clearly outlined the critical role infrastructure plays in the delivery of offshore wind, the industry’s requirements with respect to infrastructure, the scale and location of the investment required, the structural barriers which have prevented this being delivered to date and a range of credible approaches to addressing this.
This work will be essential in the development and deployment of the Floating Offshore Wind Manufacturing Investment Scheme (FLOWMIS). It will play an important role in establishing an enduring offshore wind infrastructure investment scheme in the UK to deliver the scale and speed of offshore wind infrastructure investment required
to achieve net-zero.
Ultimately, the FOW CoE has delivered evidence and guidance to partners and stakeholders regarding the industry’s commercialisation, while laying the foundations for a range of major strategic programmes. These large multi-million-pound initiatives will accelerate technology development and close knowledge gaps in advance of the industry’s need, facilitating the delivery of floating wind.
For more information, please visit ore.catapult.org.uk
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