The Floating Wind Innovation Centre (FLOWIC) is the UK’s first innovation centre focused purely on the development of floating offshore wind technology. Delivered by the ORE Catapult and supported by ETZ Ltd, it is dedicated to accelerating the commercialisation of floating offshore wind in the UK by de-risking the development and deployment of new products, services, technologies and businesses within the sector.

The centre is located within the Altens Industrial Estate of the Energy Transition Zone and is developed to ensure that the North East of Scotland and wider UK capitalise on the massive opportunity created by the Scottish seabed leasing round, Scotwind, which will drive the development and demand for floating offshore wind.

Priority Areas of FLOWIC

Initial focus areas for FLOWIC focus on the development, testing and qualification of critical floating wind technologies including moorings, anchoring and dynamic cable systems, as well as the design and optimisation of floating offshore wind technologies and projects – including project construction, operations and maintenance.

The centre aims to:

• support the development of a floating wind supply chain, increase UK content for new offshore wind farm developments in the future and strengthen O&M practices;
• support developers, operators, equipment manufacturers, supply chain companies and small innovators with research, test, deployment and validation in relation to offshore wind;
• enable collaboration with and between academia and industry to drive down costs of floating offshore wind and develop, accelerate and validate new and improved technology solutions;
• support clustering of energy transition investment and activities;
• facilitate the transition of technologies from other industries, such as oil and gas; and
• enable technology developers to reduce risks, such as premature failure and reducing unplanned maintenance.

The UK Opportunity

The North East of Scotland has an opportunity to use its first mover advantage and be a global leader in offshore floating wind given the significant synergies with subsea technologies and expertise – 75% of the world’s subsea engineering capability is based in the region and 14.6GW of floating wind power was approved as part of the recent ScotWind leasing round.

Andrew Jamieson, ORE Catapult’s CEO said:

“The development of floating offshore wind is one of the biggest opportunities in the UK today to secure real global leadership. Working in collaboration with industry, government and other stakeholders, we can grasp the unprecedented opportunity for UK technology and process innovation to solve challenges such as faster consenting and enhanced grid solutions, driving economic and supply chain growth and job creation as we strive to achieve Net Zero.”