The Celtic Sea Cluster has been established to help drive market creation for floating wind, accelerate supply chain readiness and develop a strategy for enhancing regional infrastructure.
The Cluster will respond to the growing number of project developers staking a claim to areas of seabed in the Celtic Sea, the area of ocean situated off the coast of Cornwall, between Wales and Ireland.
It will support floating wind developers access between 15 and 50GW of the 150-250 GW total floating offshore wind capacity that could realistically be developed in the Celtic Sea, the region of sea space between the England, Wales and Ireland.
Floating offshore wind is expected to contribute to the creation of more than 29,000 UK jobs and deliver an anticipated £43.6bn in UK gross value add (GVA) by 2050 against a 100GW offshore wind deployment scenario, whilst boosting industry and opportunity in Wales and the South West.
With the UK setting a target of 40GW of offshore wind by 2030, the ambition is at least 1GW will come from floating wind.
And with the Climate Change Committee predicting we’ll need at least 100GW of offshore wind by 2050 to meet our Net Zero targets, a significant proportion of which will be floating wind, the scale of the task is enormous, requiring a coordinated response from the UK supply chain and a potential economic boom for Wales and the South West from the engineering, operations, and maintenance of the Celtic Sea floating wind platforms and turbines.
Membership of the Celtic Sea Cluster will provide individual supply chain organisations the opportunity to have their views collectively shared as one voice to Governments, Regulators and Project Developers.
The Cluster will enable collaboration and preparation to respond to floating wind procurement calls.
Benefits of membership:
Membership of the Celtic Sea Cluster is open to all companies with an established base in Wales, Cornwall and the Great South West, or companies seeking to provide inward investment into those regions.
Members must demonstrate clear interest in the offshore wind sector or be from other industrial sectors interested in entering the offshore wind sector e.g. aerospace, defence, automotive, or oil and gas.
Membership does not convey any rights or obligations to members, though the Cluster Board may consult the membership.
The Cluster Board will work with members to help them understand the regional and national requirements of the offshore wind supply chain in the UK and overseas.