The UK Hydrographic Office (UKHO) is partnering with the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas) to launch a marine innovation challenge focused on developing solutions that use marine geospatial data in offshore renewable energy.
The challenge, which is part of the Admiralty Marine Innovation Programme, aims to find solutions that use the data to help identify new areas for offshore renewable energy and optimise the performance of existing infrastructure.
Applicants can access a wide range of geospatial and scientific data to help them develop the solutions.
The selected applicants will then get to work alongside experts at both the UKHO and Cefas to develop a prototype product to test with users.
The winner will receive a chance to develop an alpha product to test in the offshore renewable energy market.
UKHO head of research, design and innovation Mark Casey said: “The offshore renewables sector is a vital pillar in the Blue Economy and has an important role to play in the fight against climate change.
“With significant potential, this sector must be supported with access to data to enable better decision making.
“The Admiralty Marine Innovation Programme is dedicated to harnessing the power of innovation to explore how data can support ocean sustainability.
“To achieve this, we must be collaborative. We are proud to partner with Cefas for this challenge and we welcome applications from all organisations with a creative solution for how marine data can accelerate growth in offshore renewables.”
Cefas chief scientist Stuart Rogers said: “We are pleased to partner with the UKHO again to build on our previous successful collaborations.
We recognise the global potential for offshore renewables and are keen to work with the sector to ensure that future development can proceed in an environmentally sustainable way.
“We believe this project has the potential to accelerate high quality data synthesis relevant to offshore renewables and contribute to the de-risking of future developments, allowing the sector to contribute to meeting the UK government’s targets for renewable energy generation and net-zero emissions.”