Speaker: Professor Deborah Greaves is Director of the Interdisciplinary Research Centre for Decarbonisation and ORE, Director of the COAST Laboratory and was Head of the School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics (2017-2022) at the University of Plymouth with previous appointments at the University of Oxford, UCL and the University of Bath. Her research interests include marine and offshore renewable energy, and physical and numerical modelling of wave-structure interaction. She is Director of the Supergen ORE Hub, has led many national and international research projects in ORE in collaboration with industrial and academic partners and has secured over £27 million research income. In the Queen’s Birthday Honours List, 2018, she was awarded an OBE for services to Marine Renewable Energy, Equalities, and Higher Education and in 2020, she was elected to be a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering. She was appointed as a Member of EPSRC Council in 2022.

Abstract: Offshore renewable energy (ORE) has long been recognised as having huge potential. The UK has the second-highest tidal range in the world and there are estimates that around 50% of Europe's tidal energy resource and 35% of European wave resource lies in UK waters. The UK’s offshore wind capacity target is 50GW by 2030, and the Crown Estate recently published plans to support Floating Offshore Wind in the Celtic Sea to deliver 4GW by 2035, extending to 20GW by 2045. Professor Deborah Greaves will outline the key areas of research in developing our offshore renewable energy. She will introduce the Supergen ORE Hub highlights and future plans and will also present on a new initiative to support High End Computing in Wave Structure interaction.

Speaker: Stuart Herbert B.Eng (Hons) is the Chief Technical Officer at Celtic Sea Power. Stuart joined Wave Hub Limited in 2013 to lead negotiations with companies planning to use the test site and identify new business opportunities. Prior to joining Wave Hub, Stuart worked as commercial and operational manager for the SGS Renewable energy services division and business development manager for the National Renewable Energy Centre (now the ORE Catapult), focusing on marine energy device and wind turbine testing. Stuart now focusses on technical aspects of the Celtic Sea Power operation including provision of technical support for floating offshore wind developers and negotiations relating to the operation and future development of the large battery storage facility.

Abstract: The infrastructure at the Wave Hub offshore test site in Hayle Cornwall was installed in 2010 to support the expected growth in wave energy technology development. In 2008 it was predicted that arrays of wave energy devices producing up to 20MW could be operational off the coast of Cornwall by 2020. The predicted rise in grid scale wave energy production has not happened and so the Wave Hub site has been repurposed to support the deployment of Floating Offshore Wind Turbines. This presentation will discuss the development of the original Wave Hub site infrastructure and the work carried out to make the site suitable for the deployment of Floating Wind Turbine technology.