£1.1bn invested in hitting emission targets

The Energy Technologies Institute (ETI), an industry/government partnership, revealed £20 million in funding for its first four projects aimed at providing more affordable low carbon electricity. Three of the projects will focus on designing cutting edge offshore wind turbine technology, while the fourth will demonstrate a new commercial scale tidal turbine. Project Nova will see a consortium led by Guildford energy specialists OTM Consulting and including representatives from Cranfield, Strathclyde and Sheffield assess the feasibility of a unique wind turbine with a pair of giant vertical wings. Project Helm Wind, led by E.ON Engineering and including representatives from Rolls-Royce, BP Alternative Energy and the University of Strathclyde, this project aims seeks to overcome turbine reliability and maintenance access issues at a new offshore-specific wind farm. Project Deepwater Turbine led by Blue H Technologies with BAE Systems, EDF Energy, Romax and SLP Energy is designing a 5MW floating offshore wind turbine for deepwater deployments between 30 and 300 metres. Project ReDAPT, led by Rolls-Royce aims to install and test a 1MW tidal turbine in Orkney. Speaking after the ETI announcement, Dougie Sharp, who is head of concept and research engineering at BVT, BAE Systems’ naval joint venture company with VT Group, said: “This announcement is a great opportunity both for the renewables and defence sector to work together to achieve energy and climate change targets. The UK defence industry has an exceptional level of specialist skills which can easily be diversified into the energy sector and as proven with the announcement today and recent projects such as BVT’s work on the largest land based wind farm in Europe, we are building up a strong track record in the delivery of some world class projects.”