November 14, 2008—The Carbon Trust, an independent company funded by the UK government, has signed a groundbreaking agreement in offshore wind with five international energy companies: DONG Energy (Denmark), Airtricity Developments (UK), RWE Innogy (Germany), ScottishPower Renewables (UK), and StatoilHydro (Norway).
This marks the start of a major new research, development, and demonstration initiative called the Offshore Wind Accelerator (OWA). Worth up to 30m over the next five years, the OWA aims to cut the cost of offshore wind energy by 10 per cent or more through a combination of wind farm cost reductions and performance improvements.
Offshore wind reportedly has the greatest potential of all renewable energy technologies to deliver the UK’s 2020 renewable energy targets, but delivering this potential will be a significant challenge, notes Carbon Trust. This new initiative is therefore designed to help to tackle one of the key barriers to offshore wind deployment—the rising costs of projects—which have more than doubled over the last five years. It will do this by taking up key opportunities in technology development in a collaborative approach that shares the associated costs and risks.
The Offshore Wind Accelerator will focus on cost and risk reduction in the short to medium term, covering key topics related to wind farm design, construction, and operation, including: offshore foundations; wake effects; access, logistics, and transportation; and electrical systems. Large-scale demonstration projects are expected to follow from 2010 onwards.
