The Joule Challenge: Background & Opportunity for UK Supply Chain within Offshore Wind
The Joule Challenge Phase 2 project is a flagship £5m, 20-month programme, funded by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) through its Net Zero Innovation Portfolio (NZIP), established to create a detailed roadmap for incorporating radically new composite-based components in the next generation of offshore wind turbines.
Phase 1 of the Joule Challenge, completed in 2020, proved the importance of composite materials in enabling the next generation of offshore wind turbines. Phase 1 predicted impressive reductions in component masses of up to 60% and a reduction of embedded carbon of up to 55%. The project has already produced a Technology Development Plan for a 20MW demonstration turbine, incorporating a programme framework, identification of critical technology gaps, potential partners and stakeholders and a detailed technology development path.
Delivered by a collaboration of two Catapult centres: ORE Catapult and the National Composites Centre (NCC), part of the High Value Manufacturing (HVM) Catapult, the Joule Challenge Phase 2 project has set out to prove that composite materials can deliver significant performance and light-weighting opportunities that will be essential to addressing the technical challenge of developing the next generation wind turbine platform beyond 20MW.
This second phase has focused on developing concept components utilising high-value design and manufacture (HVDM) expertise to capitalise on existing UK capabilities. It also supports the Offshore Wind Sector Deal’s ambitions to drive down the cost of energy through lower-cost manufacturing, increasing UK content and developing export opportunities of between £60-80m per year by 2030.
A key element of the project is the engagement with the UK composite and offshore wind sectors to gather market intelligence and explore the potential for how these next-generation components can be manufactured and delivered, with the emphasis on increasing content of the UK supply chains.
Interactive Supply Chain Webinar: Blade Automation & Leading Edge Protection on Tuesday, 14th March, from 10.00am-11.00am GMT
In order to develop a more focused understanding of our UK supply chain capabilities & appetite for growth we would like to invite you to join us for a focused deep dive on a number of our component workstreams.
This session will focus on Blades including our learnings and take-away for higher levels of Automation within the Blade manufacturing process and next generation leading edge protection solutions. As we go through the session we will be gathering survey response from our audience to help us understand our current UK capabilities to help us identify both our existing skills and our skill gaps. In the session we will cover the following areas for discussion:
If you are interested in the above topic area or capabilities within automation of large structures, resin infusion, large scale tooling capability and are happy to provide feedback on the opportunities for your business and the UK supply chain please join us for this session.
