The UK is at the forefront of the development, adoption and export of Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) technologies: offshore wind (OW), wave and tidal energy. To sustain this advantage, the UK must spearhead research and innovation in ORE, which will accelerate its adoption and widen the applicability of these technologies. Many organisations across the industry-academia spectrum contribute to ORE research and development (R&D) co-ordination and the ORE Supergen hub strategy will take a leadership role, integrating with these activities to guide and deliver fundamental research to advance the ORE sector.

The role of the Supergen ORE hub is to provide research leadership for the ORE community to enable transformation to future scale ORE. The hub will articulate the vision for the future scale ORE energy landscape, will identify the innovations required and the fundamental research needed to underpin the innovation. It will also generate the pathway for translation of research and innovation into industry practice, for policy adaptation and public awareness in order to support the increased deployment of ORE technologies, reducing energy costs while increasing energy security, reducing CO2 emissions and supporting UK jobs. The hub will work closely with the ORE Catapult (ORECAT) and become well-connected with industry, government, the wider research community in the UK and internationally. It will bring together these groups to assemble the expertise and experience to define and target the innovations, research and actions to achieve the ambitious energy transformation envisioned for the UK.

The new Supergen ORE hub will continue to support and build on the existing internationally leading academic capacity within these three research areas (OW, wave and tidal technology), whilst also enabling shared learning on common research challenges. The ORE hub will build a multi-disciplinary, collaborative approach, which will bring benefits through the sharing of best practice and exploitation of synergy, support equality and diversity and the development of the next generation of research leaders.

The hub strategy provides an overview of research and innovation priorities, which will be addressed through multiple routes but linked through the hub, with activities designed to stimulate alignment across the research community and industry sectors to maximise engagement with prioritised research challenges through and beyond the hub time-scale. These include:

1. Networking and engagement activities to bring the research community together with industry and other stakeholders to ensure research efforts within the community are aligned, complementary and remain inspired by or relevant to industry challenges. This will include support and development of the ECR community to ensure sustainability and promote EDI within the sector as a whole. Actions will also be taken to identify potential cross over research synergies and opportunities for transfer of research between sectors and disciplines, both within and external to ORE. Furthermore, a structured communication plan built around progress of the community towards the sector research challenges will promote exploitation and commercialisation.

2. A set of core research work packages addressing priority topics selected and structured to maximize progress towards the sector objectives and building on the cross cutting expertise of the co-director team.

3. Targeted use of flexible fund as seed-corn activity leading to projects aligned with, and in partnership with, the hub.

Potential Impact:
The UK is a global leader in ORE research and deployment and the rapid global growth of the sector provides substantial opportunities to expand the UK benefit. The research programme of the Supergen ORE hub, its management structure and the pathways to impact will help maximise these potential benefits.

Industry and Investors

The structure of the ORE industry base reflects the differing stages of development in OW, wave and tidal energy with wave and tidal being dominated by UK SMEs while the OW industry is dominated by large OEMs and developers, most of which are based outside of the UK. OW, wave and tidal will benefit directly from the Supergen hub research and indirectly from the conduit the hub will provide to the wider ORE research network. Wave and tidal companies will benefit from the Supergen hub research through improved understanding of the operating environment, better modelling and design methods, innovative solutions and a clearer picture of the potential benefits of the technology, thus reducing risk. In the case of OW, in addition to the benefits above, there is an opportunity to increase the UK content (both CAPEX and OPEX) of deployments in our coastal waters and also to prove and establish technologies and services that can form the basis for global export businesses in a sector which is expected to see exponential growth for several decades to come. The focus of the hub research on large scale and floating structures will underpin industry opportunities for both UK and international deployments.

The industry will benefit through direct involvement in research projects but also through access to models, data and standards developed and disseminated through the hub and the wider ORE network for which the hub will act as a focal point. It will also benefit from the development of a pool of talent with the knowledge, experience and academic/industry networks able to support this rapidly growing sector. Through implementation of the ECR, EDI and communications plans we will seek to ensure that a pipeline of talent is available to the industry which is better skills trained and has greater diversity than is currently available.

Government and policy makers

The research programme will provide improved understanding of the potential contribution of ORE technologies to the energy mix and of the environmental and GVA impacts resulting. This will enable policy makers to have increased confidence in planning and decision making, ensure suitable regulatory frameworks are in place and identify priorities for support.

The communications plan will help increase the level of understanding of ORE among the general public, helping ensure greater support for governmental policies.

Public

Increased deployment of appropriate ORE technologies will help to deliver on national and international energy and climate change objectives, and ensure security of energy supply at an acceptable cost with known and managed environmental impacts. The increase in high value employment opportunities will positively impact on the UK in general and particularly in coastal communities.

The ORE hub management structure has strong involvement of end users and other stakeholders to create the necessary two-way lines of communication and influence and to ensure that the research remains relevant and has a clear pathway to implementation in practice. The Supergen ORE hub will work closely with the ORE Catapult (ORECAT) and Carbon Trust, and will collaborate on joint research programmes and workshops and in support of the Offshore Wind Innovation Hub (OWIH).

The hub will extend its influence through its international strategy, building strategic partnerships and opportunities with global reach, and Cross Hub Activities, identifying opportunities to support research at the interfaces between the remits of individual hubs and to convene joint research and engagement.