Blue economic proving ground

Adoption of robotics and autonomous systems by the offshore wind sector will be vital to achieving the renewables expansion needed for Net Zero.

There are three compelling reasons why:

1.To achieve our net zero targets, the UK's offshore wind capacity will need to increase more than sevenfold by 2050\. That means pushing operations into ever-deeper, more remote and more treacherous waters with narrower weather windows for safe human access.

2.Robotics can take on the routine maintenance tasks (such as scouring the surfaces of thousands of blades for critical cracking and erosion (there are 30,000 currently at UK wind farms -- onshore and offshore) or checking the approximately 10 million bolts at these farms for loss of tension and integrity. Ultimately, this will mean better pre-emptive maintenance and control over these essential net-zero assets.

3.Finally, with better pre-emptive maintenance, we can extend the lifetime of components and turbines at sea, helping the industry progress to a circular, zero-waste economy

De-risking these technologies for adoption by industry is the crucial next step.

This project shows how technology developers can test and gain independent validation of their technologies at a proposed network of test and validation facilities, building on our Levenmouth Demonstration Turbine in Fife to our National Renewable Energy Centre in Blyth (Northumberland) and Operations and Maintenance Centre of Excellence in Grimsby.