Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult

Today, we're publishing a joint industry position paper that makes a set of recommendations to remove barriers to offshore charging and enable decarbonisation in the maritime sector. ⚓ The offshore wind sector has pledged to deploy low carbon Crew Transfer Vessels (CTVs) and Service Operation Vessels (SOVs. Offshore charging presents an opportunity to harness the clean energy generated by offshore wind farms in its most efficient form. Combined with battery-powered vessels, offshore charging presents one of the most promising and cost-efficient technologies to deliver low carbon vessel operations. The challenge now, is to move from demonstrations to long term trials and commercialisation. This paper makes a set of recommendations that will remove barriers to offshore charging, with low to negative costs involved for the enabling parties. 💡 Read the full paper here: https://lnkd.in/e6pVk3bD Signatories: Operation Zero, Bibby Marine, The Carbon Trust, Equinor, Maritime CleanTech, MJR Power & Automation, North Star, ORE Catapult, Siemens Gamesa, Stillstrom, Tidal Transit Limited, VARD

SeaThor are committed to advancing the floating offshore wind sector through the development of CableSpring - a patented dynamic cable protection system! 🌊 Cable failures are a key challenge for the floating offshore wind industry, that can result from excessive tension, compression or curvature of the cable, or due to cable fatigue. CableSpring comprises buoyance uplift and integrated bend-protection, creating an expanding spring-like system around a cable. SeaThor have participated in both our Launch Academy and TIGGOR programmes and benefitted from use of our world-class test and demonstration facilities in Blyth, and at the Floating Wind Innovation Centre (FLOWIC) in Aberdeen. Further collaboration followed with grant funding via the UK/US Floating Offshore Wind Supply Chain Acceleration Bilateral (FLOWB) programme. Through this, industrial research and development of CableSpring took place, as well as a comparison analysis of the system. The analysis confirmed the benefits of CableSpring when comparing full fatigue life with current state-of-the-art dynamic cable protection systems. The fatigue testing at FLOWIC comprised of 396,000 cycles at different deflection angles, with no evidence of damage or wear to the stiffener sections. ⚡ Read the full case study here: https://lnkd.in/es8pxPPv Innovate UK | National Laboratory of the Rockies | University of Maine

It was all things deepwater wind this afternoon at All-Energy Exhibition and Conference, where we heard a great session sponsored by the Net Zero Technology Centre (NZTC)! 💡 Our Director of Strategy, Tom Quinn joined Jason Paterson, Technology Principal at NZTC and Dr Alex Cochrane, Lead for National Manufacturing Institute Scotland (NMIS) North, to discuss balancing the fixed and floating wind opportunities. As offshore wind moves into deeper waters, the relationship between floating, hybrid and deep-fixed wind technologies will be crucial. The UK offshore wind sector must strive to find the balance if we are to unlock the potential of the emerging deepwater market.

It was great to be back at All-Energy Exhibition and Conference 2026 at the SEC in Glasgow today! The team are exhibiting at Innovate UK's stand (L50) through the conference, so please do drop by to learn more about the ways in which we help accelerate innovative products and services for the offshore renewable energy sector and discover how you can collaborate with us. It was fantastic to hear Nadara, Port of Cromarty Firth and Scottish Enterprise present on temporary moorings for floating foundations and make reference to the work being carried out on our TOWMS project (Temporary Offshore Wind Mooring Systems). The TOWMS study aims to assess how temporary wet storage could support the large-scale deployment of floating offshore wind in the UK. Alongside Intermoor and Seaway7, we're excited to be leading this study which will examine the technical, operational and commercial considerations associated with temporary mooring of floating substructures, including port infrastructure requirements, mooring strategies, logistics, consenting and risk allocation. 👉 Click here to learn more about the work we do in floating offshore wind, or better still, come and speak to the team exhibiting at All-Energy tomorrow ⚡ : https://lnkd.in/eDKHVZkj

It was great to host Prof Sir Ian Chapman, Chief Executive of UK Research and Innovation at our world-class offshore wind testing and validation facilities in Blyth today. 🚀 Our directors, Cristina Garcia-Duffy and Andrew Macdonald gave Ian a tour so he could see for himself some of the ways in which our facilities foster and drive innovation within the offshore wind sector. They discussed the sector's innovation priorities, how we collaborate with stakeholders to boost supply chain growth and how North East England is at the heart of the offshore wind opportunity.

We're excited to be back at All-Energy Exhibition and Conference in Glasgow next week! 🚀 If you're attending, drop by Innovate UK's stand (L50) to speak to our team about learn more about the ways in which we help accelerate innovative products and services for the offshore renewable energy sector and discover how you can collaborate with us. Moreover, our Director of Strategy, Tom Quinn, is presenting on deepwater wind and how we balance the fixed and floating opportunity alongside Jason Paterson and Alex Cochrane. Sponsored by the Net Zero Technology Centre, catch that session on the Offshore and Onshore Wind & Marine Energy Show Floor Theatre at 12:30 on Thursday 14th May.

A huge congratulations to Maritime Developments Limited on receiving a King's Award for Enterprise 2026 in Innovation! 💡 Maritime Developments Limited are one of the many companies that have achieved 'granted' status through our Fit for Offshore Renewables (F4OR) programme. It was a pleasure to have them as part of our third North East Scotland cohort, sponsored by the Energy Transition Zone Ltd.

𝐔𝐥𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐜 𝐛𝐥𝐚𝐝𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 3WIS ⚙️ Our specialist blade engineering team at ORE Catapult is pleased to share news of our successful demonstration with 3WIS, a Danish company that specialises in delivering advanced NDT inspections on turbine blades, showcasing non-destructive inspection methods used during turbine blade testing that could help with early detection of emerging structural challenges.   The industry collaboration – using the 88m wind turbine blade housed inside test facilities at our National Renewable Energy Centre in Blyth - builds on our extensive expertise supporting clients develop innovative solutions to industry challenges.   These advanced services, provided by collaboration with companies such as 3WIS, are central to delivering key manufacturing and test analysis insights for OEMs and identifying potential improvements for structural assessments.   Our blade test facilities have access to an 88m reference wind turbine blade that can be used as a platform in a controlled test environment for new technology innovators and demonstrations.   Learn more and get in touch here: https://lnkd.in/ejHnxEx9

Floating wind represents a massive opportunity for the offshore renewable energy sector, but requires innovative solutions and technologies that can solve challenges and deliver cost reduction. 💡 Dublin Offshore's Load Reduction Device (LRD) is solving mooring challenges in floating offshore wind by reducing costs and mitigating failure risks, whilst substantially decreasing mooring loads on the floating platform. Dublin Offshore have utilised our test facilities in Blyth, we're worked alongside them on collaborative research and development projects, and most recently they've participated in our FLOWB programme, in collaboration with Innovate UK. The FLOWB programme supported Dublin Offshore's LOADCERT project, which they worked on with the University of Maine to conduct mooring analysis and the mechanical design and manufacture of the LRD prototype. ➡️ Click here to learn more about Dublin Offshore and how we've worked with them: https://lnkd.in/ekcstM2Y