Scotland CAN DO Offshore Wind Innovation Feasibility Challenge (UK)

This grant will support you to conduct new detailed design, technical, and/or commercial feasibility assessment for relevant products and services, over a period of three months.

This is a competitive funding call – which means Scottish Enterprise will only be able to award funding to a limited number of projects.

Objectives

• Your innovative technology solutions must help the offshore wind sector to speed up project implementations. This will support a carbon emission reduction and help Scotland move towards its ambition for a zero-emissions future.
• You should must be planning to develop and demonstrate prototype solutions in Scotland.
• The prototype solutions can be at the whole, subsystem, or key component level.
• Your solutions should address the defined challenge areas described in the previous section.
• You should be intending to commercialise the solution to the challenge – and this commercialisation must support the development of Scotland’s green economic recovery. There must be a clear longer-term impact from the project, relating to Scottish jobs that support the green economy.

Challenge Areas

• They’re looking to support innovative solutions that address the most important innovation challenges identified by the industry. In particular, your products and services should help to drive the offshore wind sector and Scotland’s supply chain forward.
• Here are the innovation areas that have been identified:
  • Installation
    • Mooring systems connection
    • Floating electrical systems connection
    • Offshore floating assembly activities
  • Operations and maintenance (O&M)
    • O&M strategy for dynamic floating conditions
    • Balance of plant condition monitoring for floating wind
    • Optimised O&M major component change strategies
    • Robotics solutions for floating offshore wind
  • Electrical infrastructure
    • Improvements in HVAC dynamic cables
    • Improvements in HVDC dynamic cables
    • Floating substations
    • Single mooring and cable disconnection point system
  • Anchors
    • Innovative anchor manufacturing methods
    • Shared anchor solutions
    • Novel anchoring solutions
  • Mooring lines
    • Load reduction devices
    • Mooring systems, including tensioning and quick connect systems
    • Innovative mooring monitoring solutions
    • New materials for mooring systems, including rope, chain, and other materials
  • Substructures
    • Manufacturing of current floating wind concepts
    • Manufacturing of disruptive floating wind concepts
    • Design for whole lifecycle cost reduction
    • Modular designs and reduced assembly times of steel substructures
  • Blades
    • Next-generation composite materials
    • Blade edge protection
    • Circular economy – this refers to innovative thermal, mechanical, and chemical decommissioning processes
    • Blade inspection
  • Towers
    • Next generation tower design and materials
    • Automation, welding, and manufacturing production lines

Funding Information

• This call will offer grants of between £30,000 and £50,000.

Eligible Projects

• The funding will support the cost for you to conduct detailed design, technical, and/or commercial feasibility projects.
• To be eligible for funding, your project must:
  • Be an R&D feasibility project that clearly addresses the challenge brief
  • Be aimed at providing the technical detail and commercial case for subsequent prototype development and demonstration projects
  • Be aiming to develop and commercialise innovative technology
  • Last up to three months
  • Be completed by 30 June 2025
  • Be largely carried out in Scotland — following the feasibility project, the aim should be to prototype and demonstrate the solution in Scotland

Eligibility Criteria

• This call is open to businesses of any size. To be eligible, your business must:
  • Be registered or trading in Scotland, or be looking to set up a trading location in Scotland before 1 January 2025
  • Be a registered company (a company that’s registered with Companies House)
  • Be an individual business – they can’t accept applications from collaborations
  • Be committed to fair working practices, which means work that offers all individuals an effective voice, opportunity, security, fulfilment and respect – it also includes paying employees at least the real Living Wage (currently £11.44 in Scotland)

For more information, visit Scottish Enterprise.