Offshore Wind in the UK, China, USA, Japan and South Korea: Synergies, Opportunities and the Future

Delivered by the Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN), the Missions provide an expert-led evidence base to strengthen Innovate UK’s global investment strategy: how and where it should invest to create UK business opportunities in partnerships with key economies. Each Mission has representatives from UK business, policy and research community, who:

• Gather market insights and build expert foresights on new and emerging innovation sectors
• Identify opportunities for international collaboration
• Build a portfolio of technological and business priorities that will elevate the UK as the ‘Partner of Choice’ in future innovation partnerships with global partners
• Facilitate international dialogues for the UK business community
• Align innovation policy and unlock regulatory barriers for future partnerships

The offshore wind sector is a UK success story; we have the largest installed capacity of offshore wind in the world and costs have fallen faster than anyone could have envisaged 10 years ago. In partnership with UK Government, the offshore wind sector has flourished, demonstrating it can deliver ever larger projects to predictable timescales, at ever lower costs while creating skilled, fulfilling, well-paid jobs in communities around the country. There are more than 430,000 jobs in low carbon businesses and their supply chains, employing people in locations right across the country and 7,200 are directly employed in offshore wind.

A UK Government Sector Deal marks a significant deepening of the partnership between the government and the sector, reinforcing the aims of the government’s Industrial Strategy to build a Britain fit for the future. The UK Government has identified that post BREXIT, they wish to establish strong global applied research engagement (higher TRL) and trade where the UK has key experience and technical strengths such as offshore wind.

Against this setting, between April 2018 and March 2019, a series of Global Expert Missions took place to the US, China, South Korea and Japan, focused on the topic of offshore wind.

These Missions sought to build on the UK’s experience in designing, constructing and operating the largest offshore wind market in the world. Collectively, the Missions explored opportunities across the supply chain, in particular highlighting areas of UK strength. The intention of the Missions was to identify the specific areas where a more focussed collaborative innovation approach would be mutually of interest and beneficial.