Six projects will embark on ambitious research to address specific challenges hindering the growth of the offshore renewable energy sector
The Hub’s Flexible Funding is designed to enable UK researchers to tackle critical challenges in offshore renewable energy. It supports innovative projects that complement existing research, fill gaps or explore cross-cutting opportunities to bridge disciplines within the offshore renewable energy landscape. To date, the Flex Fund has supported 46 projects to the value of £4.6 million and leveraged £5.9 million in matched funding from industry partners.
A wide range of high-quality research projects will be supported through this fifth Flexible Funding call, including analysis of decommissioned foundation sections to quantify residual stresses, research which will support design standardisation by defining an environmental classification system that incorporates multiple environmental conditions, and studies to quantify 'wind theft' from neighbouring wind farms and assess the benefits of coordinated deployment scenarios.
Research and innovation in offshore renewable energy is vital in helping to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, and mitigate the effects of climate change. We are pleased to support these projects, each of which tackles specific challenges hindering the growth of the sector. Their research offers solutions to accelerate deployment and maximise the energy we capture, helping to drive the clean energy transition forward. We look forward to reviewing the results.
The Flexible Funding call received a large number of high quality research proposals and, due to limited funding, only a small number of research proposals were able to be funded. The Supergen ORE Hub will continue to work with our industry partners and the wider sector to explore avenues for future funding and opportunities to develop research that targets the sector's most critical challenges.
The full list of funded research projects is as follows. Further information about the successful projects from this and previous Flexible Funding rounds can be found on the Supergen ORE Hub impact pages.
- NextGen Anchor Design: Harnessing the Potential of Probabilistic Surrogates and Seabed Evolution Modelling - University of Southampton (Dr Katherine Kwa). Read more.
- POUNDS: Prediction Of Unquantified Losses from Offshore Wind Farm Wakes - University of Manchester (Dr Pablo Ouro). Read more.
- Validating Environmental Monitoring Systems for Floating Tidal Stream Turbines - Environmental Research Institute (Dr Benjamin Williamson) Read more.
- Effect of Creep and Tensile Cyclic Loads on Serviceability of Rock Anchoring Systems for Floating ORE Mooring - University of Dundee (Dr Matteo Ciantia). Read more.
- EnviroClass: Pioneering Innovative Environmental Conditions Classification to Unlock Standardisation and Mass Manufacturing of Floating Offshore Wind Turbines- University of Strathclyde (Prof. Maurizio Collu). Read more.
- ASAMES: Advanced Stress Analysis for Optimised Marine Energy Structures - University of Strathclyde (Dr Saeid Lotfian). Read more.
We are delighted to award this funding to advance offshore renewable energy research. Often described as the backbone of our clean energy provision, the offshore renewable energy sector faces significant growth targets. Sustained investment in research and innovation is essential to drive the rapid growth of this emerging industry and harness the vast resources of the ocean to combat climate change.
Notes to Editors
For more information about this news release, contact supergenorehub@plymouth.ac.uk
The Supergen ORE Hub
The Supergen Offshore Renewable Energy Hub provides research leadership to connect academia, industry and policy stakeholders to drive innovation in offshore wind, wave and tidal offshore energy development. Led by Prof. Deborah Greaves OBE, Head of School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics at the University of Plymouth, the Hub is a consortium of Universities researching Offshore Renewable Energy which also includes University of Aberdeen, University of Edinburgh, University of Exeter, University of Hull, University of Manchester, University of Oxford, University of Southampton, University of Strathclyde and University of Warwick.
The Supergen ORE Hub is one of several Hubs created by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) to deliver sustained and coordinated research on Sustainable PowER GENeration and supply.
