GE Vernova’s offshore wind business and the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult, a UK-based technology innovation and research centre, have announced a new research partnership to enhance the offshore wind energy market.
The £4m ($5.1m), multi-year partnership between GE Vernova and ORE Catapult will create a dedicated research programme to slash the levelised cost of energy for the global offshore wind market through reliable, sustainable and demonstrated technologies.
GE Vernova offshore wind business chief technology officer Vincent Schellings stated: “We are pleased to be able to build on our collaboration with ORE Catapult. They are an important partner in helping us to understand how we can use innovation to continue to make offshore wind as efficient, reliable and sustainable as possible, both in the UK and globally.”
The two organisations will focus on enhancing offshore wind turbine performance and improving operations and maintenance through smart technological solutions.
They will also seek to address the biggest future challenges that the industry faces, including the large-scale deployment of offshore wind and the use of applied research for the development of key innovations.
ORE Catapult CEO Andrew Jamieson stated: “This new collaboration is a hugely exciting development for the sector and will allow us to build on the fantastic work we have already seen come through the previous research programme carried out with our colleagues at GE Vernova.
“By combining knowledge and research capabilities in this way, we can help innovative UK companies to develop some of the cutting-edge technological solutions that can help them support the continued growth of the UK offshore wind sector, while also opening up opportunities to export their skills and services to new global markets.”
GE and ORE Catapult previously worked on a programme called Stay Ashore. It assisted UK businesses, from micro-SMEs to large companies, in collaborating and building products that extend the life of offshore wind components.
