Offshore Wind Global Business Innovation Programme in Boston, USA

A GBIP has three stages:

Prepare for the market

Preparing for the market includes the cohort being briefed by sector and market experts on, for example, cultural aspects of conducting business in that country. Delegates receive help to find business partners and arrange meetings and are advised on best practice including the management and protection of their intellectual property.

Visiting the market

Visiting the market provides opportunities to attend pre-arranged meetings and activities in order to better understand and maximise the opportunities that the visit presents.

Exploiting the opportunity

Exploiting the opportunity is arguably the most important aspect of the programme. To maximise the opportunity, participating companies are given bespoke one-to-one support from an Innovate UK EDGE innovation and growth specialist to help develop and implement an action plan.

The Global Business Innovation Programme operates on a competitive basis and businesses selected are required to participate in all three stages (some or all of which may be online).

To apply, you must be a UK based innovation-led company with ambitions to grow and internationalise, with fewer than 500 employees. You must be able to attend and complete all activities.

The US offshore wind market is anticipated to grow substantially over the coming years, with a target to install 30 GW by 2030. The maturity of the UK supply chain provides businesses with a fantastic opportunity to support this emerging US market with key skills, knowledge, and technological innovations. The Programme To support the development of the offshore wind market, Innovate UK and the National Offshore Wind Research & Development Consortium (NOWRDC) is launching a joint collaborative R&D competition to support UK-US R&D projects. This innovation mission will give UK participants an opportunity to visit Boston to identify potential US collaborators to jointly bid for funding.

Development & demonstration of solutions for offshore wind resiliency and transmission coordination:

• Improve power reliability: voltage control, frequency response, black-start capability.
• Innovations in coordinated transmission solutions to optimise efficiency for multiple wind farms, minimise environmental impacts & onshore constraints: shared cable landfall, offshore backbone and meshed grid, dynamic array cables at 132kV, dynamic export cables.
• Integration of long-duration energy storage (+10 hours): feasibility/modelling of differing storage technologies & energy systems, integration technology development.

O&M Systems Development:

• Technologies & strategies to increase effectiveness, reduce costs and improve safety: assessments of O&M requirements for different substructure designs, component health monitoring including corrosion monitoring & management, digital twin development & application, robotic inspection & integration, innovations and/or assessment of opportunities to address technical and efficiency challenges with large-scale OW buildout in deeper waters further from shore.
• Technologies and strategies that advance O&M supply chain development: assessment for implementation of ocean- based testing & validation for O&M approaches/technologies, technoeconomic analysis of port & vessel upgrades specifically for O&M.

Technologies to reduce development and operational impacts on the marine biosphere:

• Noise reduction technologies.
• Mooring line sensors to detect entanglement, marine growth, and line failure.
• AI tools/technologies for wildlife detection.
• Solutions to mitigate interactions with protected/endangered species and habitats.

Register for the applicant briefing event on 27th July 2023 here

Closing date for application: 13th August 2023
Pre-visit workshop: 6th – 7th September 2023
Innovation visit:  2nd – 6th October 2023