In addition to the awards for High Voltage Partial Discharge (GBP545,000), JDR Cable Systems (GBP 1 million) and Principle Power (GBP 698,000), the scheme has opened a £4million fourth call for applications.

Offshore wind has potential to reduce the UK’s reliance on fossil fuels, help cut carbon and help meet the UK’s renewables targets. Innovation is key to improving efficiency and has the potential to drive down costs of offshore wind by 25 per cent by 2020 and 60 per cent by 2050, but further investment is needed in this area.

Energy and Climate Change Minister Greg Barker said:

“This £2.3million will give three more companies the boost they need to take their innovative designs to the next level, helping cut costs in offshore wind generation, and ultimately helping us harness more power from turbines out at sea".

The awards will help the companies develop their technologies in three areas:

HVPD is developing Offshore High Voltage Network Monitoring System (OHVMS) ‘holistic’ electrical condition monitoring technology for the offshore wind farms subsea cable networks. The technology will be developed over an 18-month period through a consortium led by HVPD and including RWE Npower, NAREC and the Universities of Edinburgh and Durham.

According to the company, the OHVMS system will provide an advanced, ‘early warning’ alarm against MV/HV cable insulation faults to support preventative, cable repair maintenance interventions and to improve the reliability and availability of this important source of renewables electricity.

JDR is developing the field of inter array cables, and the funding will support new research into high voltage array cabling for offshore wind farms.

Principle Power will use the funds to advance the design of its WindFloat specifically for the UK market, with focus on meeting the Offshore Wind Task Force levelised cost of energy targets. It is also currently working with partners in the US marketplace on the WindFloat project.