Competition offers millions for new offshore wind designs

A multi-million-pound global competition launches today to find the best new foundation designs to support the next generation of offshore wind farms.

The contest, being run by the Carbon Trust, was kicked off by Ed Miliband MP, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change.

The competition is aimed at finding foundation designs that can work at ocean depths of 30 to 60 metres and can be used in large-scale demonstration projects by 2010 – 2012. The goal is to identify a design that can generate a full lifecycle cost reduction of 30 per cent over existing foundations.

“The Carbon Trust announcement today offers even more support to the offshore wind industry on top of the measures we have seen in the Budget,” Miliband said. “It’s time for the industry to seize the opportunity and take the money that’s there for advanced green manufacturing.”

“Building a low-carbon economy means making Britain a thriving global hub of innovation,” added Tom Delay, chief executive of the Carbon Trust. “We need technologies, individuals and companies to flourish and be continually challenged to come up with new designs and ideas to ensure the UK benefits from the move away from fossil fuels.This global competition is an opportunity for the very best designers to contribute to the future of this essential new industry. It’s time for Britain to be bold and offshore wind is a great example of a technology that with will deliver significant carbon reductions and huge economic value to the UK.”

The competition, which formally opens on 11 May and closes on 15 June, will seek entries from engineers, designers, academics, research institutes and others across the globe. Each design will be assessed by an expert panel of judges, with a short list of finalists to receive up to  £100,000 for detailed assessment of the design concepts. The final winners will have their designs built and installed with funding from a consortium including the Carbon Trust.