Renewable energy businesses in the north-east of England are set to benefit from a new £2.8million initiative to encourage more small and medium sized firms into the supply chain.
The Renewable Energy Technology Accelerator project, which is being run by the National Renewable Energy Centre, aims to provide more than 70 SMEs in the region with technical and market support for developing products and services aimed at the offshore renewable industry.
It has launched with three collaborations between Narec and companies in north-east England, and draws on funding from the centre, European funding and five industry partners.
“Initial interest from industry has been extremely high and the projects selected will see new products being developed in the North East,” said innovation development director Tony Ikwue.
“There will also be knock on benefits by way of supply contracts and knowledge transfer opportunities for SMEs looking to enter these promising but still relatively immature industries.”
Already in place is support for IHC Engineering’s development of an inter-array cable trencher for offshore wind farms, a new smart cable system for power transmission from offshore grids and a project in development by Atlantis Resources to develop an intervention system for tidal energy converters.
The programme will run until the end of March 2015.
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