GB Energy mulling 'convergence' contest and serialisation push for floating wind

The UK's new energy industry champion, Great British Energy (GBE) is preparing a competitive process to support key innovative floating offshore wind technologies as part of its efforts to strengthen the UK’s supply chain for clean energy.

The competitive process, which has not yet received final approval but expected to be ready for launch in less than a year, comes under a new £1bn ($1.3bn) Energy Engineered in the UK (EEUK) initiative to mobilise public and private investment in critical supply chains.

As part of this broader programme, GBE today launched a £300m supply chain fund for offshore wind and networks, aiming to tackle bottlenecks in key components such as blades, turbines, transmission cables and converter stations.

But GBE also announced a new deep-water wind commercialisation programme, described as a “whole-value-chain approach to accelerate the deployment of floating wind and other deep water technologies”.

One key trackway for this deep water programme is to provide investment to support serialisation of production in segments of the local supply chain.

GBE has said it will work alongside funding partners including the National Wealth Fund, Scottish National Infrastructure Bank, and The Crown Estate to unlock financing for large-scale manufacturing projects.

Another track for the deepwater programme aims to narrow down the best choices among the more innovative or less mature design solutions, supporting technologies that help the sector scale up faster and more economically, but also aiming to help develop technologies rooted in UK intellectual property or best able to take advantage of UK supply chain strengths.

Convergence competition

Although the decision to go ahead with insiders are calling a “convergence competition” has not yet been taken — and eligibility criteria have yet to be defined — GBE has signalled that it is keen to support an innovation process that will provide a proving ground and possibly a route to market for attractive technologies.

In terms of floating offshore wind foundations, the proposed convergence competition is also seen as a lever for helping the sector move away from a situation where there are more than 100 competing designs.

Major wind turbine manufacturers have complained that they are forced to divide valuable engineering time between relatively small floating offshore wind projects, hindering the process of modularisation and serialisation that is expected to bring down costs.

GBE said the programme will set out clear next steps, timelines and delivery pathways that demonstrate a “long-term commitment to the sector and to a system-wide approach to cost optimisation and UK industrial value creation”.

“The programme will accelerate modularisation and standardisation of manufacturing, delivering cost reductions across the value chain, while working with partners across the sector, including wind turbine Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs),” GBE stated.

Working with partners, GBE said the programme “is expected to develop commercial structures and demand signals that provide predictable, bankable markets for UK-made foundations, giving investors confidence to commit to long-term capability building”.

GBE's initial £300m supply chain fund for offshore wind and networks went live through an online portal today (Thursday).

"Great British Energy is investing in British industry, we are helping to create jobs, driving innovation, and ensuring clean energy infrastructure is built here in the UK,” GBE chief executive Dan McGrail commented on the wider EEUK initiative.

Another £700m will be invested in renewable energy supply chain through the EEUK initiative within the current parliamentary period, GBE stated.

Pentland is under development by Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) and Japan’s Eurus and has Stiesdal Offshore as its technology partner.