Application Deadline Approaches for Funding UK Offshore Wind Feasibility Studies

Innovative UK companies are invited to bid for Government funding of up to £11.2m for feasibility studies, development and demonstration projects and knowledge transfer  partnerships that stimulate innovation in the UK offshore wind and marine energy supply chains.

Grant funding of £10m, from the UK’s innovation agency, the Technology Strategy Board and the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC ), will support feasibility studies and component technologies development and demonstration projects exploring offshore wind technologies that minimise costs to the UK consumer and ensure the UK economy gains more benefit from increased supply to future projects.

In addition, funding of £1.2m from the Technology Strategy Board and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) will establish knowledge transfer partnerships to build innovation capability in UK businesses and stimulate the transfer of expertise from academia to business in the fields of offshore wind, wave, tidal stream and tidal range energy.

Up to £3m will be available for technical feasibility studies to bring new ideas to the offshore wind sector. Applications are encouraged from organisations already in the offshore wind sector, but also from parallel sectors such as oil and gas, defence, aerospace and automotive.  Up to £7m will be invested in projects that relate to the experimental development and demonstration of component technologies of next-generation offshore wind systems.

The competition for feasibility studies opens on 5 November 2012 while the competition for development and demonstration projects will open early that month. Applications for both competitions must be received by 16 January 2013.

The call for Knowledge Transfer Partnership funding opens on 13 September 2012 and the deadline for applications is 24 April 2013.

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Press release, December 17, 2012; Image: Vattenfall