Seizing the opportunities offered by Floating Offshore Wind (FLOW)
A capacity audience of over 30 delegates attended a special seminar on 12th September at The Enterprise Space for Advanced Manufacturing in St Austell. Hosted by the Marine-i team, the theme of the day was: The Great South West Floating Wind Strategy – Defining the Challenge.
The Opportunity
Based on expected deployment levels, floating wind will be
cost-competitive with bottom-fixed offshore wind by 2031. The UK should
therefore expect to deploy floating wind from the 2030s at the latest, but
action is needed now to ensure the UK can realise substantial value from this
advancing market.
Our Valuable
Resources
The UK (particularly Scotland and the South West) has an
abundance of consistent, high-speed wind resource in deep-water sites, both
close to, and further from, shore. Making use of these sites will become
increasingly important as sites suitable for bottom-fixed offshore wind are
built out and space-related conflict with other marine users increases. The UK
offshore wind’s sector deal vision of 50GW by 2050 can be enabled with 10GW of
floating wind; and reaching towards the upper end of industry ambition of 69GW
is likely to require at least 20GW of floating wind.
The Need for Clean
Energy
The UK’s Clean Growth Strategy recognises the value and
importance of developing and investing in world-leading low-carbon technologies,
to secure sustainable clean energy supply. The growing global market, the UK’s
current lead and potential for future deployment, the ability to locate
projects in locations not accessible by bottom-fixed wind and the cross-over
with existing supply chain strengths in offshore wind and oil & gas all
combine to make FLOW a natural fit.
The Global Context
Credible industry developers and financial backers are
currently developing and assessing the opportunities for commercial-scale floating
wind deployment. Market development is currently being driven by a number of
countries, including the UK. Key players are emerging as Japan, USA, France,
China, Taiwan, Korea, Norway, Spain and Portugal and these countries represent
growing export opportunities, but also competition, for UK companies.
A Requirement for
Innovation and Investment
The UK supply chain is well-placed to capitalise on the
market opportunity and this includes a significant number of companies located
in the South West. There is a big opportunity to export existing UK strengths
in development, design, engineering and maintenance, but investment in key ports
and fabrication facilities is required in order to unlock the full potential
value in terms of jobs and Gross Value Add (GVA). A healthy domestic market
will underpin ongoing UK export success.
Defining the Building
Blocks for a South West Strategy for FLOW
The Seminar heard from a broad range of expert speakers,
including the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Enterprise Partnership, Principle
Power, Simply Blue Energy, and Regen South West. Some of the key issues arising
from the presentations and roundtable discussions were:
· The need for technology balance in the South
West
· The Policy, Revenue and Market support that will
be required
· The challenges facing Technology Developers and
Project Developers
· The hurdles that must be overcome in order to “industrialise”
FLOW
· The constraints regarding planning, grid, ports,
infrastructure and supply chain capacity
· How to learn from the experience of other
countries so that the South West can become a global leader in this field
· How to provide a compelling case for UKG, TCE
and investors in order to support major investment decisions
· The enabling actions that will be required to
move forward, especially Finance, RD&I support, SME support, and Skills and
Training.
Next Steps
This was a very fruitful session which mapped out the needs
of all the key stakeholders in developing a successful South West Strategy for
FLOW.
The feedback from delegates was overwhelmingly positive, and
it was agreed to hold a follow-up session in the near future to continue
building the strategy.