Funding Competition: UK-US Offshore Wind Collaborative R&D

The aim of this competition is to reduce the cost and risk of offshore wind development projects throughout the US. UK-US collaboration must be significant and meaningful, with your UK project demonstrating integration with the US project.

Only UK registered partners must be listed in the Project Partner section of your application on the Innovation Funding Service (IFS). Your US partners will not receive any of this UK competition funding.

Challenges and Themes

Your project’s scope must address one or more of the challenge areas for this competition:

• Challenge 1: Solutions to facilitate offshore wind resiliency and transmission coordination
  • 1a: Development and demonstration of solutions that improve offshore wind power reliability
    • voltage control
    • frequency response
    • production forecasting and grid integration
    • black-start and grid forming capability
    • other wind powered reliability innovations
  • 1b: Development and demonstration of innovations in coordinated transmission solutions that optimize efficiency across multiple large projects, minimize environmental impacts, and conform with onshore grid constraints
    • improved cable routing or shared cable landfall
    • offshore backbone and meshed grid or multi-terminal HVDC
    • dynamic array cables at 132 kilovolt (kV) and or dynamic export cables
    • other transmissions solutions
  • 1c: Development and demonstration of solutions for integration of long duration energy storage of greater than 10 hours with offshore wind, to facilitate offshore wind resiliency, transmission coordination and integration.
    • feasibility studies on the techno-economic analysis of differing energy storage solutions with offshore wind, such as hydrogen, thermal storage and pumped storage
    • feasibility studies joining up the physical requirements of the offshore wind-energy storage system with policy, market, dispatchability and digital arrangements
    • energy systems-level modelling for offshore wind-energy storage integration and consideration of demand side response
    • energy storage integration technologies with offshore wind development, considering turbine, farm and onshore network options
    • other energy storage integration solutions
• Challenge 2: Operation & Maintenance (O&M) Systems Development
  • 2a: Technologies and strategies that advance the effectiveness, cost efficiency, and safety of O&M
    • comparative assessments of O&M requirements and considerations associated with different substructure designs
    • technologies to improve offshore wind turbine component health monitoring, including corrosion monitoring and management
    • offshore wind turbine digital twin development and application in-practice
    • technological innovations to facilitate wind farm maintenance for example robotic inspection technologies and integration into practice, LiDAR, drone, sensor
  • 2b: Technologies and strategies that advance O&M supply chain development and flexibility
    • programmatic assessment for implementation of ocean-based testing and validation of approaches and technologies for O&M
    • technoeconomic analysis of port and vessel upgrades specifically for O&M purposes
    • other O&M supply chain technologies and strategies
• Challenge 3: Innovation to facilitate ocean area coexistence
  • Technology concepts that reduce offshore development and operational impacts on the marine biosphere
    • technologies that attenuate adverse impacts on marine life for example reducing noise impacts, reducing siting conflicts and the impacts of installation practices
    • structural alternatives or deployment methods that avoid or mitigate noise generation
    • mooring line sensors for detection of secondary entanglement, marine growth, and line failure
    • AI tools and other technologies, such as sonar, hydrophones, or camera systems, that improve detection and monitoring of fisheries and wildlife; or that improve marine navigation in and around offshore wind areas
    • technology solutions that mitigate and reduce interactions with federally managed, protected, and endangered species and their habitats

Project Size

• Your project’s total eligible costs must be between £150,000 and £600,000.

Eligibility Criteria

• Your project must:
  • last between 12 and 24 months
  • carry out at least 80% of its project work in the UK
  • intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
  • start by 1 October 2024
  • end by 30 September 2026
  • work collaboratively with an R&D project in the US which is funded by NOWRDC
• To be eligible for an Innovate UK grant award, the US project which you intend to collaborate with must also be awarded funding from NOWRDC.
• Applications identified as not eligible by either Innovate UK or NOWRDC will not be sent for assessment.
• To lead a project your organisation must:
  • be a UK registered business of any size or a research and technology organisation (RTO)
  • be or involve at least one grant claiming UK micro, small or medium-sized enterprise (SME)
• To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must be one of the following UK registered:
  • business of any size
  • academic institution
  • public sector organisation
  • research and technology organisation (RTO)
• Each organisation in your consortium will receive funding from its respective national funding body.
• Each UK partner organisation must be invited into the Innovation Funding Service by the lead to collaborate on a project. Once partners have accepted the invitation, they will be asked to login or to create an account in the Innovation Funding Service.
• Your project can include partners that do not receive any of this competition’s funding, for example non-UK businesses. Their costs will count towards the total project costs.
• You cannot include US partners that do not receive Innovate UK funding, and their costs will not count towards the total project costs.
• Subcontractors can be from anywhere in the UK and you must select them through your usual procurement process.
• You can use subcontractors from the European Economic Area (EEA) but must make the case in your application as to why you could not use suppliers from the UK.
• You must provide a detailed rationale, evidence of the potential UK contractors you approached and the reasons why they were unable to work with you. They will not accept a cheaper cost as a sufficient reason to use an EEA subcontractor.
• All subcontractor costs must be justified and appropriate to the total project costs.
• A business or research and technology organisation (RTO) can only lead on one application but can be included as a collaborator in a further 2 applications.
• If a business is not leading any application, it can be included as a collaborator in up to 3 applications.
• They will not award you funding if you have:
  • failed to exploit a previously funded project
  • an overdue independent accountant’s report
  • failed to comply with grant terms and conditions.

For more information, visit Innovate UK.