Offshore Wind Growth Partnership announces the winners of its largest funding call to date, the Development Grant Funding Competition .
Five UK companies are celebrating after securing a share of the £1.5M Development Grant funding pot from the Offshore Wind Growth Partnership (OWGP).
Launched in October 2020, the Development Grants competition was the largest OWGP funding call to date – offering grants of up to £500,000 to UK offshore wind supply chain companies for projects that will unlock significant growth potential in UK content, jobs and export opportunities.
The five companies come from across the UK and represent different areas of the the offshore wind supply chain, from fabrication and turbine assembly to wind farm surveillance and bolt maintenance.
CASC, based in Northern Ireland are responsible for mobilising and demobilising the pre-assembly activities for the largest offshore wind farms across the world. Through investment in new equipment, their OWGP project will enable full automation of manufacturing processes to increase capability and output.
Cambridge Vacuum Engineering are specialist manufacturers of Electron Beam (EB) welding systems across a range of sectors. Their OWGP project RapidCircWeld, in partnership with Global Energy Group, will focus on developing their novel Reduced Pressure Electron Beam (RPEB) welding process for circumferential welds on offshore wind monopiles, towers and tubular floating foundations.
EchoBolt have successfully developed and commercialised an advanced ultrasonic bolt inspection technique for offshore wind turbines. Project BoltWatch, funded by OWGP, will develop their existing in-house cloud data platform into a fully integrated customer product, enabling customers to actively track asset condition, incorporate other data streams and self-perform EchoBolt inspections.
LiveLink Aerospace specialise in innovation to facilitate safer air operations and carbon neutral air transport. OWGP funding will be used to determine the feasibility of using their onshore Air Surveillance Systems to facilitate safe next generation aviation around offshore wind farms, together with ‘smart’ environmental and wildlife monitoring.
Sedwell Ltd specialise in developing bolting solutions for safety and performance critical assets. OWGP funding will support their InterBoltTM solution – an IIoT sensing technology embedded into bolts that will allow remote monitoring of bolt load on offshore turbines, thereby eliminating the need for manual inspection.
Melanie Onn, Deputy Chief Executive of RenewableUK said: “Well-targeted grant funding like this is continuing to accelerate the growth and the strength of the UK’s offshore wind supply chain. It’s great to see so many UK companies already benefitting from the support available through the Offshore Wind Growth Partnership, enabling them to develop products and services which will help to revolutionise the way we build, operate and maintain our world-class offshore wind farms – as well as exporting our much sought-after goods and expertise to new projects around the world”
The OWGP’s grant funding portfolio now consists of twenty-two projects, each bringing unique benefits to the UK offshore wind sector, creating jobs and unlocking UK export opportunities. This number is expected to grow exponentially throughout the next 10-years as a continuous pipeline of competitive funding rounds are released, enabling significant UK supply chain growth to 2030 and beyond.
To find out more about future OWGP funding opportunties, and apply for any of the business improvement and growth support programmes, visit https://owgp.org.uk
- Funding competition winners and projects are:
| Company | Project |
| CASC | Enhancing turbine pre-assembly capability and output |
| Sedwell | InterBoltTM |
| Cambridge Vacuum Engineering | RapidCircWeld |
| LiveLink Aerospace | Facilitating safe next-generation aviation and smart environmental monitoring for offshore wind farms |
| EchoBolt | BoltWatch |
About the Offshore Wind Growth Partnership
The Offshore Wind Growth Partnership (OWGP) was launched in June 2019 and is a key part of the Sector Deal between industry and Government and is funded by the Offshore Wind Industry Council (OWIC) with a budget of £100m over a ten-year period. It is a long-term business transformation programme that will promote closer collaboration across the supply chain, implement structured productivity improvement programmes and facilitate shared growth opportunities between developers and the supply chain. ORE Catapult will manage the delivery of OWGP with support from specialist delivery partners.
About the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult
ORE Catapult was established in 2013 by the UK Government and is part of a network of Catapults set up by Innovate UK in high growth industries. It is the UK’s leading innovation centre for offshore renewable energy.
Independent and trusted, with a unique combination of world-leading test and demonstration facilities and engineering and research expertise, ORE Catapult convenes the sector and delivers applied research, accelerating technology development, reducing risk and cost and enhancing UK-wide economic growth.
Active throughout the UK, ORE Catapult has operations in Glasgow, Blyth, Levenmouth, Aberdeen, Hull, the South West and Wales.
About the Offshore Wind Industry Council
A senior Government and industry forum, OWIC was established in 2013 to drive the development of the world-leading offshore wind sector in the UK.
. Launched in October 2020, the Development Grants competition was the largest OWGP funding call to date – offering grants of up to £500,000 to UK offshore wind supply chain companies for projects that will unlock significant growth potential in UK content, jobs and export opportunities. The five companies come from across the UK and represent different areas of the the offshore wind supply chain, from fabrication and turbine assembly to wind farm surveillance and bolt maintenance.){kind=link}