ORE Catapult collaboration to open opportunities in Chinese offshore wind market

The UK's Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult on Friday announced a collaboration agreement with China's Tus-Wind and TusPark Newcastle that it said will provide UK innovative businesses and universities with access to China's rapidly growing offshore wind market.

Under the agreement, the companies will work together on the development of the Tus Offshore Wind Science Park and 500-MW demonstrator in Shandong province. The demonstrator project will feature 10-15% UK technology content, which will bring an estimated GBP 220 million (USD 294m/EUR 249m) to UK companies and universities, ORE Catapult said.

The research and development (R&D) collaboration agreement, signed in Beijing at a ceremony hosted by UK business and energy secretary Greg Clark, also calls for the establishment a UK-China technology growth accelerator to drive UK small business technology innovation and deployment in China's offshore wind market. In addition, the companies will create joint applied research projects.

ORE Catapult and Tus plan workshops in early 2018 to find innovative technologies best suited for development for the Chinese offshore wind market.

"After a dozen years of rapid growth, China today manufactures and installs half of all onshore wind turbines in the world," said Yingzhuo Du, senior vice president of TusEnergy. "We are now at the start of such a journey in offshore wind, and there is no better place to learn than from the extensive experience and expertise of UK innovators and the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult," Yingzhuo Du added.

(GBP 1 = USD 1.337/EUR 1.133)

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