For my final-year project at university, I chose to study the UK offshore renewable energy (ORE) supply chain, with a particular focus on floating offshore wind (FOW), tidal stream energy, and wave energy. This post provides a brief introduction to the project.
Despite the UK’s increasing deployment of wind energy, it has realised relatively low gross value-added (GVA) benefits. GVA measures the total contribution of individuals, industries, or sectors to the economy by evaluating the value of goods and services produced minus the cost of inputs directly linked to that production.
As a late mover in this market, the UK now struggles to competitively build parts of the wind energy supply chain locally, requiring it to outsource aspects of supply from other countries. This reduces local content (the percentage of project costs delivered domestically) and results in lower GVA benefits.
As ORE technologies are relatively new, the UK has the opportunity to establish itself as a market leader and achieve higher GVA benefits—provided it makes the necessary investments to develop its supply chain capabilities early on.
This project provides background on the UK ORE sector, analyses the market in which it operates, and examines current UK and global deployment targets alongside expected economic benefits. It also assesses the UK’s existing supply chain capabilities, with a focus on FOW and tidal stream energy—both of which are more advanced in their development—and explores the requirements for building competitive UK ORE supply chains.
The document I submitted is linked below if you would like to learn more.
If you have any comments or new information to share, please feel free to contact me via email or LinkedIn.