Research institutions agree plan for EU Centre of Excellence for offshore wind

The objective of the Centre of Excellence is to strengthen Europe’s long-term leadership in wind energy research through effective co-ordination, collaboration and leveraging funding.  

The event took place earlier this month in collaboration with the Norwegian embassies in the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Germany and Norway. The goal of the event was to gather businesses, government and institutions to strengthen collaboration in offshore wind research.

Among the organisations signing the MoU were SINTEF, DTU, ForWind, TNO, Fraunhofer, ORE Catapult, CENER, CIEMAT and NTNU. The research organisations and universities are all members of EERA JP Wind, a collaborative initiative between European research organisations. The Centre of Excellence will be managed by EERA JP Wind.

EERA JP Wind steering committee member Stephan Barth said, “Signing this MoU shows the commitment from the research community. There is a huge need to ramp up deployment of offshore wind in Europe.”

EERA JP Wind co-ordinator Ignacio Martí said, “This is the first time multiple research organisations, from six different European countries, have agreed to take this kind of initiative.”

EERA JP Wind subprogramme manager and SINTEF signatory John Olav Tande, director of the NorthWind initiative in Norway said, “We need all hands on deck to reach climate targets. 

“Making offshore wind a pillar of Europe’s energy system by 2050 will require transnational collaboration in both development and research. Establishing a European Centre of Excellence will not only enable Europe to reach its targets – it will result in significant cost reductions down the road.

“Europe is very much a leader in offshore wind but now the bar has been raised and we have even higher ambitions. Conducting ad hoc projects is not enough anymore. We need to create a permanent platform for stronger collaboration between research, industry and governments across Europe.”