The Offshore Wind Evidence & Knowledge Hub, a new digital knowledge hub to transform the information landscape of the offshore wind sector, has called for interested parties for its community of practice.
The UK’s Crown Estate, which owns and manages the UK’s extensive seabeds, is to launch a new knowledge hub to significantly speed up development of offshore wind capacity. Run in partnership with Atkins through the Offshore Wind Evidence & Change Programme, the Offshore Wind Evidence & Knowledge Hub (OWEKH) will help to realise the ambition of 50GW of offshore wind by 2030.
To achieve that aim, the Crown Estate wants to provide easy access to information to accelerate and streamline the consenting process. Later this year, the launch of the digital portal will enable developers, regulators, marine specialists and other professionals working in offshore wind to access and interact with key data and documentation to inform rapid, high-quality consenting around offshore wind development. The information available will include past impact assessments, industry knowledge, large scale datasets and academic references.
The project is now inviting organisations and individuals to help shape the development of this important new initiative by signing up to become part of the community of practice and technical topic groups. By doing so, they can lend their expertise in curating and interpreting the data and evidence collected within the knowledge hub. Participants will be able to keep up to date with the latest industry advances, input their own expertise and link up with subject matter experts in key concerns.
Any parties involved in the offshore wind consenting process are invited to participate, from consultants, specialised sub-contractors and developers to regulatory and other stakeholders, including marine professionals and fisheries planners.
Sion Roberts, marine consents manager at The Crown Estate and project manager for OWEKH, said: “As managers of the seabed, The Crown Estate recognises that accelerating our journey to net zero requires collaboration across stakeholder groups working in offshore wind. Today’s announcement marks an important step on the way to achieving this. By consolidating expertise between many projects and stakeholders across the sector, OWEKH will significantly shorten the consenting process and accelerate the expansion of offshore wind generation.”
Chris Mcdougall, project director for OWEKH at Atkins, said: “The current consenting process often requires developers to start ‘from scratch’ in knowledge gathering. This can be expensive and lengthy. OWEKH will facilitate a valuable knowledge transfer, for instance, providing data on cetacean movements that may have already been captured, or a piece of best practice on analysis methodology. It is the community of practice and working groups that will guide publication of these crucial pieces of information and build on them to provide cohesive guidance for the industry. We are encouraging any offshore wind consent experts with knowledge to share to get involved.”
Since the initiative launched in August 2022, an in-depth requirement gathering phase has taken place with industry stakeholders, facilitated by Atkins, which is leading on stakeholder engagement and development of the digital platform. Workshops and individual engagement with subject matter experts have informed a gap analysis to advise the design and build of the sector-wide open portal. Feedback will continue to be integrated from the OWEKH steering group.
Individuals or organisations wishing to register their interest on becoming part of OWEKH’s community of practice and technical topic groups are invited to contact the OWEKH development team at Atkins here.
