UK companies are being invited to bid for funds of up to £11.2 million to develop the supply chains serving the offshore wind and marine energy sectors.
The funding, of which £10 million is coming from the Technology Strategy Board and the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), is aimed at feasibility studies and the development and demonstration of projects that minimise the costs of offshore wind power.
The £10 million will be split between supporting technical feasibility studies bringing new ideas to the offshore wind sector, which will get up to £3 million, and projects that are developing and demonstrating component technologies for next-generation offshore wind systems, which could receive up to £7 million.
A further £1.2 million from the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and Technology Strategy Board is earmarked specifically to set up ‘knowledge transfer partnerships’ to help UK businesses innovate and stimulate the transfer of technologies and expertise from academic to industry in the offshore wind, wave and tidal energy sectors.
The competition for feasibility studies will open on November 5, with the competition for development and demonstration projects following early in the same month. Full applications will be due by January 16, 2013.
Meanwhile, applications for knowledge transfer partnerships is already open with the deadline set for April 24, 2013.
For further information:
www.innovateuk.org
www.decc.gov.uk
www.nerc.ac.uk
www.innovateuk.org/content/competition/developing-the-offshore-wind-supply-chain.ashx
www.innovateuk.org/content/competition/developing-the-offshore-renewable-energy-supply-ch.ashx
Related stories:
UK wind power sets new record high of 4 GW (14-Sept)
UK leads 50% boost in European offshore wind capacity (23-Jul)
Offshore wind costs to drop 30% by 2020, says UK task force (14-Jun)
Co-ordinating offshore wind development could save £3.5 billion (2-Mar)
Article source: http://www.energyefficiencynews.com/i/5378/
