New era for the port of Grimsby
The port of Grimsby, located in the heart of the UK’s established offshore wind scene, and former home to the world’s largest fishing fleet, has been quietly reinventing itself as a centre of excellence for high-speed communications infrastructure supporting the offshore wind sector.
Core to this successful evolution is the £2.8m 5G PORTAL (Ports & Offshore Renewables Technology Accelerator Lincolnshire) launched in October 2023, funded by Innovate UK and the Greater Lincolnshire Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) with the aim of attracting users from across the global offshore wind sector.
A custom-built linked fibre network has allowed this 5G-equipped ‘living lab’ to be integrated into both Grimsby’s commercial port infrastructure and daily operations of the 54-turbine Lynn and Inner Dowsing offshore wind farm located 5km off the east coast of England, close to Skegness.
Private high-speed 5G network
ORE Catapult leads the consortium delivering the 5G PORTAL, bringing together expertise from Microsoft, XceCo, Associated British Ports (ABP), Accelleran, JET Connectivity, Boldyn Networks and the Satellite Applications Catapult.
The 5G PORTAL is located at our OMCE (Operations and Maintenance Centre of Excellence) building at the port of Grimsby. Asset management specialists XceCo Ltd are also based at the port, from where they provide full management of the Lynn and Inner Dowsing windfarm on behalf of its owners. Their team provides operations and maintenance services to a wide group of offshore wind, onshore wind, and thermal power companies – over 600 such assets are currently subject to their engineering, health and safety, and financial oversight.
The facility’s extended private 5G network spans a 45km2 area, comprising fifteen 5G radio transmitters across five sites (including four wind turbines and the radio mast owned by Associated British Ports). These assets are due to be paired with a solar-powered 5G buoy which will be located offshore.
Technology providers can access this reliable, high-speed network to develop, test, and demonstrate new products, services and equipment under real world operating conditions – from robotics and remote sensors, artificial intelligence and wearable technology to zero emission vessels and smart ports.
Collaboration is key
A close, mutually-beneficial working relationship has been forged between the OMCE team and XceCo Ltd, and this collaboration has proven central to successful delivery of the facility.
Our relationship with XceCo stretches back several years to their involvement with our SPARTA (System Performance, Availability and Reliability Trend Analysis) wind farm benchmarking project; BLEEP (blade leading edge erosion programme), and owner-operators O&M Forum knowledge transfer group.
The XceCo team has taken a full partnership approach, investing significant human, operational and financial resources, and working with their team is proving an exemplar of the type of mutually-beneficial relationships we seek to develop with industry partners.
XceCo further supports OMCE by hosting equipment on turbines for technology demonstrations and monitoring generator health for a machine learning project to help predict future generator failures. They also support decarbonisation studies, including assessment of how to install offshore charging infrastructure for use by crew transfer vessels (CTVs) – funded in part by the UK Government’s multi-year clean maritime demonstration competitions (CMDC).
Ongoing mutual benefits
Collaborating with our team has extended expert resources to the XceCo team, helping them further improve safety, mitigate risk, and optimise supply chain while developing new employee skills and enhancing market presence through elevated sector visibility.
Commenting on the successful working partnership, Simon Matson, Head of Operations at XceCo said:
“Collaborating with ORE Catapult has significantly contributed to our outlook on innovation. The partnership has provided access to cutting-edge projects and studies whilst utilising XceCo’s expertise and capabilities to develop advanced technologies which service the renewables industry.
“Work completed through this collaboration has the potential to accelerate technology development, optimise inspection and maintenance practices, and reduce operational costs. These projects have also served to boost the industry skills and knowledge pool whilst bringing third party contractors to the growing floating offshore wind marketplace. Overall, the collaboration between ORE Catapult and XceCo has been successful in driving technological advancements whilst developing innovative ways of working.”
Not yet one full year into operations, the 5G PORTAL continues to play host to ambitious companies keen to harness our private network’s real time operational data to achieve successful demonstrations of innovative technology capable of reducing costs, enhancing performance and delivering measurable improvements and benefits to the wider renewable energy industry.
