Supply Chain Support available within the Offshore Wind Sector
A reminder to all North Wales and North West region supply chain companies of the vast support available within the offshore energy sector.
The recently published Offshore Wind Industry Council (OWIC) report details great opportunity for the region and the UK more broadly and highlights areas within the UK sector ranging from Cables to O&M Services, Floating Wind Designs to Steel Fabrication.
Whilst there are many regional businesses already active in the sector, new entrants are key to maximising this opportunity for the UK Energy Transition. The questions of “How do we engage with potential buyers?” and “Where in the supply chain are my products and services purchased?” are often raised by new entrants.
This is one of the key reasons, as the Offshore Energy Alliance (OEA)’s Topic Champions for supply chain growth, we decided to host a networking event for SME’s across the OEA regions and further afield. The aim was to encourage collaboration and inform businesses of the vast opportunities the UK offshore energy sector presents. We worked with the OEA to bring businesses together and discussed how businesses can increase competitiveness and productivity in the offshore wind sector.
Through fostering collaboration and strategic alliances with other SME’s, a firm can gain access to capabilities it might not necessarily have itself and vice versa, ultimately resulting in a competitive advantage for future work. This is the outcome we had hoped for from our networking event and we’re pleased that attendees are continuing their collaborative discussions. This places businesses in a stronger position in the market for offshore wind and in particular floating offshore wind, whilst also ensuring the supply chain has the resources and skills to accommodate for the rapidly emerging opportunities of the offshore energy sector.
The sector offers a number of opportunities for new businesses and new entrants to access the sector, and in particular; the Offshore Wind Growth Partnership (OWGP) Wind Expert Support Toolkit Programme is an excellent starting point. The OWGP supports companies in the UK that have the potential to work in the offshore wind sector by providing products or services to UK and global markets. The OWGP can look to support those that can bring cross-sector skills and experience, create jobs in the UK, develop and commercialise technology, and reduce the cost of offshore wind. OWGP is a national programme but works closely with local enterprise partnerships, councils and development agencies to complement the activity in each of the clusters identified through the Sector Deal.
We previously enrolled onto the OWGP Funded Business Transformation programme delivered by Sharing in Growth in 2021, therefore understand how these programmes can maximise opportunities and facilitate improvements in strategic planning, cost-reduction and product delivery. As an organisation, we are now in a stronger position to meet the needs of the offshore energy sector.
The Offshore Wind supply chain has the potential to contribute £92 billion towards the UK economy by 2040. We aim to utilise our position as the OEA’s supply chain lead to highlight the support available to companies in North Wales and the North West of England by bringing businesses together to collaborate and maximise the opportunities on the horizon.
By Hutchinson Engineering
Published: 20 November 2023
