The Carbon Trust and the Energy Technologies Institute (ETI) have put up a flare.

They have joined forces to announce plans for an ambitious £40m initiative to cut the costs of offshore wind power and accelerate its deployment around the UK. The announcement comes days after the Government proposed to open up the sea to around 33GW of offshore wind power capacity – equivalent to the UK’s entire domestic electricity needs – by 2020.

The Carbon Trust and ETI see offshore wind as a strategic priority for the UK, both to reduce carbon emissions and create economic prosperity¹, and the combined expertise and resources of these two organisations is expected to have a significant impact in accelerating progress in the sector.

The initiative will be broad in scope but will ensure a strong focus on cost reduction which, given the current high costs of offshore wind energy², is essential to provide the necessary confidence for large-scale investments and to ensure the Government’s carbon reduction and renewables targets are met.The Carbon Trust and ETI are together allocating £40m to the initiative and seeking further private sector sponsorship, and today sees the start of an ‘expressions of interest’ process inviting industry and other organisations to register their interest in becoming involved.

The overall initiative will engage organisations from across the spectrum of offshore wind technology and project development, plus other organisations with relevant expertise (for example from the offshore oil/gas sector), and is expected to lead to a small number of major projects involving research, development and demonstration activities.