The Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult forms part of an elite network of eight technology and innovation centres established and overseen by Innovate UK, which represents a £1bn public and private sector investment over the next five years.

ORE Catapult is the UK's flagship technology innovation and research centre for offshore wind, wave and tidal energy. We deliver prioritised research underpinned by world-class test and demonstration facilities, collaborating with industry, academia and Government to reduce the cost of offshore renewable energy and create UK economic benefit.

ORE Catapult

Nine companies across Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex are embarking on an award-winning technology accelerator programme to pioneer new products and services for the UK's offshore renewable energy sector - launching today (Tuesday) in Norwich.

This is the first time the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult have run their flagship Launch Academy programme in the East of England - a region that is one of the UK's largest offshore renewable energy hubs. The regional programme has been developed following the success of previous national and regional Launch Academy programmes that have supported 38 companies and raised over £22 million of investment since 2019. Imogen Stevenson, Innovation Manager at ORE Catapult, said: "It's... ... More: Official Press Release ORE Catapult

This is the first time the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult have run their flagship Launch Academy programme in the East of England – a region that is one of the UK’s largest offshore renewable energy hubs.

A new report from the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult details how the latest advancements in technology can enable faster and more accurate data collection - leading to more informed decision making and the potential to reduce consenting times for offshore wind farms by as much as 40% - reducing costs and improving our knowledge of the marine environment.

The ORE Catapult report, Accelerating Offshore Wind: The Role of Innovation in Decision-Making and Faster Consenting, outlines how robotics, AI and smart technology can lead to improved data gathering and more efficient environmental impact monitoring - that could reduce the average timeline for consent from five to three years. Examples include using computer vision with AI technology to accurately identify, track and monitor bird behaviour, to the use of autonomous underwater vehicles for passive acoustic monitoring of marine mammals.

The UK Government target to deploy 50GW of installed offshore wind energy by 2030 is heralding a rapid surge in wind farm installation, but this also requires a greater understanding of the marine environment.

Caroline Whalley, ORE Catapult's Environmental Specialist and author of the report, said: "We are already seeing how the use of new technology is helping to increase our knowledge of environmental interactions across the offshore wind sector. Through enhanced and more efficient data gathering, these technologies have the capacity to create greater certainty around the potential environmental effects of offshore wind, thereby reducing risk and streamlining decision-making during the consenting process."

Katie-Jo Luxton, Executive Director of Global Conservation at the RSPB, added: "The RSPB supports innovation as a key consideration factor in the acceleration of offshore wind to achieve ambitious UK Net Zero targets. With our marine environment already degraded and under significant pressures it is imperative that new offshore wind is deployed in ways that enable nature to recover and thrive, meeting both the conjoined climate and nature emergencies, head on.

"New technology will be essential to meet the challenge of ambitious offshore wind deployment that is nature positive. We look forward to further discussions on smarter use of technology to support decision-making at both strategic and project levels, aiming to increase both the quality and efficiency of decision-making, so that the UK's ambitions for offshore wind can also contribute to wider ocean recovery."

Recommendations in the report include:

ORE Catapult brings together innovative technology developers to de-risk and commercialise their products at its testing and validation facilities across the UK. The Catapult's new Digital, Autonomous and Robotics Engineering (DARE) Centre in Blyth provides a unique facility for testing, demonstrating, and commercialising digital and robotic products and services for the offshore wind market.

These could include unmanned aircraft systems, crawling robots, autonomous vehicles, subsea and surface vessels, as well as digital technologies harnessing AI, machine learning and big data, all of which could play a role in monitoring the environmental impact of offshore wind farms.

Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult  - Innovative technologies can accelerate development of offshore wind

Fifty-five companies have achieved the much coveted granted' status by the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult's industry-leading Fit 4 Offshore Renewables (F4OR) supply chain growth programme - signalling they are ready for business in the offshore renewables market as the UK powers towards Net Zero.

Across the UK, over 100 companies have been supported by the F4OR programme that was designed alongside industry. Participating companies experience an average 28% increase in turnover, increase their staff by 5% on average and many have gone on to secure a wide range of new contracts.

Since F4OR began in 2019, five regional programmes have run in the North East of Scotland, North East of England, East Anglia and Suffolk, and national programmes run across Scotland and UK-wide.

First Marine Solutions, based in Aberdeen, specialise in mooring solutions for floating offshore installations, and they are one of the companies in the successful F4OR granted' community.

Steven Brown, Managing Director of First Marine Solutions said: "First Marine Solutions has been a supporter of ORE Catapult since its inception, recognising its ability to assist the UK supply chain in preparing to bid for work in the offshore renewable energy sector.

"Our successful completion of the Fit 4 Offshore Renewables programme underlined our commitment to delivering a single source of wind turbine mooring solutions, and since accreditation, we can report that our Glasgow-based Renewables team has doubled in size with future growth in mind, having recently moved into larger premises.

"We are also very pleased to have supported ORE Catapult's Floating Offshore Wind Centre of Excellence with a study which explored potential standard mooring system designs, which illustrates the transferability of existing offshore supply chain experience to the rapidly developing floating offshore wind market."

The F4OR programme typically takes 12-18 months to complete, and it was designed to support companies bidding for work in the offshore renewable energy sector and boost the UK supply chain.

Andrew Macdonald, Director of Development and Operations at ORE Catapult, said: "The UK is on a sharp growth trajectory striving to meet our national target of increasing the generation of offshore wind power almost fivefold to 50GW by 2030, as we accelerate towards Net Zero.

"This creates a huge opportunity for the UK supply chain to grab a significant piece of that market, from design and manufacturing through to operations and maintenance of future offshore developments, creating jobs and economic benefit for the UK.

"It's vitally important that we support our supply chain companies as they seek to win contracts with the new generation of UK offshore windfarms."

Funding partners across the F4OR programmes have included the Scottish Government, New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnership, North of Tyne Combined Authority, Opportunity North East, Energy Transition Zone, and the Offshore Wind Growth Partnership.

Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult  - Fifty-five companies achieve gold standard' on journey to maximising success in the offshore renewables market

Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult  - Fifty-five companies achieve 'gold standard' on journey to maximising success in the offshore renewables market