Since 2001, Weatherquest Ltd has provided 24-7 B2B support to companies and organisations from a wide range of sectors whose operations are vulnerable to the weather.
Their clients are typically looking to enhance the way they manage risk, with improved safety, productivity and environmental protection their most common aims, in the face of ever-changing weather and trends in the background climate. The Weatherquest team use their access to state-of-the-art atmospheric and marine big data, both measured and computer modelled, coupled with the technical expertise of their people, to pro-actively support their clients, in practice acting as a natural extension to their teams and “an Umbrella for their Business”. Headquartered on the campus of the University of East Anglia, sharing data, co-designing tailored services and continuous improvement through innovation and R&D are characteristics of Weatherquest’s approach and service.
In order to become more competitive in the offshore renewables industry, Weatherquest Ltd took part in the Fit 4 Offshore Renewables (F4OR) programme as part of a cohort of businesses in the New Anglia region. Assessment was made and support provided across the programme’s two key strands – the first focused on core business management systems, and the second focused on key competences required for success in the offshore renewable energy industry.
The F4OR New Anglia programme was especially beneficial to Weatherquest in enhancing our business processes and confidence relating to contractual risk management, value stream mapping and alignment of strategic objectives throughout the business. The company is leaner, smarter and more effective as a result. We also learned, in fact, that our service is instrumental in helping our clients, themselves, to operate in a leaner fashion.
Meanwhile the mentoring we enjoyed from our renewable energy industry advisors helped us in particular to sharpen the Weatherquest value proposition to the renewables sector and to better appreciate the importance, in the renewables sector in particular, of ‘making some noise’, especially through Linked-In. The programme of training modules is a fantastic resource to return to again and again (powerpoints and videos) – a particular highlight was the focus on opportunities which can stem from collaboration and the associated encouragement to network and join forces with partners who have a complementary offering, including the F4OR community of companies. Furthermore, we gained a first appreciation of the scale of the business opportunity which we have in terms of the full renewable energy supply chain.
With the help of the refinements to our value proposition and the creation of an Executive Summary to accompany our tender documentation, Weatherquest Ltd was the sole weather service provider selected by RWE, leading to the signing of a Framework Agreement in September 2021. Based on this, Operations and Maintenance (O&M) weather services have since been launched, during 2022, in support of nine RWE northern European offshore windfarms. In addition, Weatherquest Ltd is already supporting the pre-construction phase of RWE’s Sofia windfarm.
With the benefit of this growing reputation in the renewable energy sector, Weatherquest’s weather service was sought as a key sub-contracted component of 4 of the 5 bids which were recently submitted (summer 2022) in response to the procurement of an integrated Marine Management & Communications system for a major North Sea Wind Farm construction project – significantly increasing our chances of success. With the help of the F4OR programme we are now in a much stronger position to compete and to partner with a wide range of collaborators to provide integrated services offering added value.
In August 2022, Weatherquest were chosen by Oceanwinds to provide weather support during the Construction phase of the Moray West windfarm – kicking off in November 2022.
A new Weatherquest website, promoting our value proposition to all sectors, is under construction for launch in January 2023.
The support from the F4OR programme places Weatherquest Ltd on a strong competitive footing to win more work in the offshore renewable energy industry. It will enable our company to
