Research and development services and related consultancy services

Tender description

The ‘Offshore Wind Accelerator’ (OWA) is the Carbon Trust's collaborative research, development and demonstration programme. Initially launched by the Carbon Trust in 2008 in collaboration with 5 offshore wind developers, it has since expanded to include nine offshore wind developers from various countries within the European Economic Area (SSE Renewables Development (UK) Ltd, DONG Energy Wind Power A/S, RWE International SE, Iberdrola Servicios de Innovation S.L., Statoil ASA, Statkraft UK Ltd, E.ON Climate & Renewables GmbH, Vattenfall Wind Power Ltd, and EnBW Energie Baden-Württemberg AG). The OWA aims to reduce the cost of offshore wind to less than 100 GBP per MWh as well as provide insights regarding industry standard (and best practice) health and safety requirements. Research under the OWA currently falls into the following research areas: (i) turbine foundations; (ii) wake effects and wind resource; (iii) access systems; (iv) electrical systems; and (v) cable installation. Technology challenges are identified and prioritised by Carbon Trust and the participating offshore wind developers based on the likely savings and the potential for the OWA to influence the outcomes. Projects are carried out to address these challenges, often using international competitions to inspire innovation and identify the best new ideas. The objective is to take the most promising concepts and fund the development, de-risking and commercialisation of these whilst working closely with the supply chain throughout the process. The Accurate Methodology for Armoured Cable Losses (AMACL) project will derive a standardised methodology for verifying armour losses in different subsea power cable designs. Independent verification through testing of the methodology developed under this project will be conducted. Ultimately the aim is to develop new formulae to verify cable losses. However, although the OWA understands that this is highly ambitious and may not be achievable to the full extent during this project, it is expected that all work should be undertaken in light of the need to improve industry understanding of cable losses and future developments in cable loss calculations. The project shall ensure that the technical benefits related to a more precise estimation of cable losses are applied and accepted by all relevant stakeholders. This includes developing a deployment plan and a strategy to achieve a wide acceptance amongst key stakeholders (insurers, Offshore Transmission Owners (OFTOs), transmission system operators (TSOs), cable manufacturers, certification bodies, service providers).