Tuesday 1 March 2022

ETZ Ltd and the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult have today announced that they will co-invest and collaborate in a world leading National Floating Wind Innovation Centre in Aberdeen dedicated to accelerating the commercialisation of floating offshore wind throughout the UK and supporting the incubation of new products, services and businesses within the sector.

The £9 million centre will be located within the Altens Industrial Estate of the Energy Transition Zone and is being developed to ensure that the North East of Scotland and wider UK capitalise on the massive opportunity created by the Scottish seabed leasing round, Scotwind, which will drive the development and demand for floating offshore wind. ETZ Ltd is providing £4m for the capital costs of the innovation centre and ORE Catapult is contributing £5m to operationally run it.

The initial focus of the Centre will be digital simulation and modelling, moving to the testing and validation of the key components of floating structures, including moorings and anchors, dynamic cables and electrical systems. The Centre aims to:

support the development of a floating wind supply chain, increase UK content for new offshore wind farm developments in the future and strengthen O&M practices;

support developers, operators, equipment manufacturers, supply chain companies and small innovators with research, test, deployment and validation in relation to offshore wind;

enable collaboration with and between academia and industry to drive down costs of floating offshore wind and develop, accelerate and validate new and improved technology solutions;

support clustering of energy transition investment and activities;

facilitate the transition of technologies from other industries, such as oil and gas; and

enable technology developers to reduce risks, such as premature failure and reducing unplanned maintenance.

The North East of Scotland has an opportunity to use its first mover advantage and be a global leader in offshore floating wind given the significant synergies with subsea technologies and expertise – 75% of the world’s subsea engineering capability is based in the region and 14.6GW of floating wind power was approved as part of the recent ScotWind leasing round.