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NEWS •

Industry platform for our offshore wind PhD students

Last week we celebrated the cutting-edge offshore wind research of our doctoral students at the Aura CDT annual conference. The conference united representatives from the offshore wind industry and academia around the theme “Plans for Offshore Wind Energy Industry Growth”.

Professor James Gilbert is Co-Director of the EPSRC Aura CDTs in Offshore Wind Energy, he said: “In the Aura CDT we talk a lot about our students being the future leaders of the offshore wind sector – as the conference opened, I urged them to make the most it, as we were privileged to also have the current sector leaders with us."

I am proud that each one rose to the challenge, whether it was presenting their research or helping to run conference sessions. It was particularly gratifying to see students present who are now working in industry or academia

Prof James Gilbert

EPSRC Aura CDTs in Offshore Wind Energy Co-Director

As well as providing a platform for our PhD students, the conference programme included industry representatives as keynote speakers, delegates and panellists.

Opening the conference programme, Dan McGrail, Chief Executive at RenewableUK delivered an introduction to the “Offshore Wind Industrial Growth Plan: expanding horizons of UK supply chain and skills”. Dan delivered an inspiring talk on the future of offshore wind while stressing the importance of a just energy transition:

“We’re not talking about a nascent sector anymore but a central part of the economy and a really important part of the UK’s future …We need to take lessons from history in the energy transition to make sure we don’t leave communities behind. Creation of long-term, meaningful jobs is key.”

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Dan McGrail, RenewableUK

In the first afternoon session of the #AuraCDT conference, we welcomed keynote speaker, Tim Pick MBE, Chair of the UK’s Offshore Wind Growth Partnership, and a Commissioner on the UK's Clean Power 2030 Advisory Commission. Tim delivered a presentation on “What does Clean Power 2030 mean for Offshore Wind?” and talked of sector challenges:

“30GW is in the bank for 2030, the question remains whether 43GW is achievable by that date? There are a huge stack of projects in the planning and development system that are due to come online shortly after 2030, so the challenge is to not only drag them forward but at an acceptable price.”

The talk was followed by a panel discussion on “What Will the Industrial Growth Plan and Clean Action Plan Deliver for the UK?”, where Tim Pick was joined by Jane Cooper, Executive Director of Offshore Wind, RenewableUK, who acted as Chair, and other panellists:

  • Alex Louden, Head of UK and Ireland Innovation Hub, Ørsted
  • Zoe Keeton, Head of Stakeholders and Local Markets, RWE
  • Chong Ng, Applied Research Associate Director, Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult said:
  • Victoria Bessonova, Wind Energy Analyst, SSE Renewables and CDT Researcher.
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Panel discussion at the Aura CDT conference

Victoria made a call for greater links between industry and academia: “At Aura we’re quite a unique environment as a lot of students are co-sponsored by industry … doing visits and guest lectures could help spark those conversations and help research become more relevant to industry.”

We were also privileged to welcome speakers Danielle Lane, Director of Offshore Development UK & Ireland at RWE, Katherine Protheroe of Osbit and former CDT student, Jordan Burgess, who is now a Postdoctoral Researcher with the Ecowind BOWIE project.

RenewableUK supported the conference awards, which were presented by their Director of Offshore Wind, Jane Cooper to:

  • Callum Rothon for best academic poster
  • Simon Brealy and Isobel Wood for best presentation.

And a big thank you to all our student sessions chairs and particularly to Di Huang and Sarah-Jane Tonks, who worked closely with the Aura CDT Operations Team at the University of Hull to organise the conference and were key to its smooth running.

The EPSRC CDTs in Offshore Wind Energy are co-led by the University of Hull and Loughborough University, in partnership with Durham University, Newcastle University and the University of Sheffield. Find out more: https://auracdt.hull.ac.uk/

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