Power Technology

Daily Newsletter

08 August 2023

Daily Newsletter

GE Vernova and ORE Catapult announce new research collaboration

The research programme will focus on enhancing the performance of offshore wind turbines.

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.

ESG 2.0 marks a shift towards stricter environmental rules

ESG is moving into a different era, which we call ESG 2.0. While ESG 1.0 was driven by voluntary corporate action, spurred by pressure from activist consumers and investors, ESG 2.0 is being driven by a new wave of government policies. The EU has taken the regulatory lead, with rules introduced or in the pipeline that will price emissions, regulate the use of the terms ‘ESG’ and ‘sustainability’ in marketing materials, and make ESG reporting mandatory. The US has taken a different approach, favoring less regulation and more financial support in the form of tax breaks for clean industry (renewables plus nuclear and hydrogen). China is planning to expand its emissions trading system to more sectors, decarbonize its heavy industry, and ramp up its use of renewables. The new policy direction is mainly motivated by the ambition to hit net zero emissions targets. But on top of this, governments are now competing for clean industry and trying to challenge China’s leadership on the production of the world’s green technologies such as solar panels and batteries, as well as the production and refinement of materials needed for energy transition such as lithium. These driving forces are leading to policy that will impact every sector, not just heavy industry, and will keep ESG near the top of the regulatory agenda over the longer term.