What is the Business Support?

The OWGP aims to maximise the economic benefits of the UK’s world-leading position in offshore wind by delivering increased productivity and competitiveness that will drive increased UK content into offshore windfarms in the rapidly growing global market as well as in the UK. The aerospace and automotive sectors have demonstrated the value that can be created from growth partnerships and the offshore wind sector is building on the lessons learned from these more mature sectors. OWGP will promote greater collaboration, increase business competitiveness, support greater innovation, attract new entrants and grow existing companies.

OWGP is a national programme and companies from all sectors and locations are encouraged to participate. The regional clusters developed as part of the Offshore Wind Sector Deal UK are an important link to engage with supply companies.

Strand A – Collaborating for Growth

The Collaborating for Growth Strand will be delivered by developers and focuses on strengthening their activities with the supply chain in relation to their pipeline of projects. This enables early engagement by individual developers with their existing and potential supply chain. This will provide greater near-term visibility of the market and support the investment cases for enhanced supply chain capability that may be needed to help deliver contracts for UK projects.

Strand B – Business Competitiveness

Helping companies to become more competitive is at the heart of the OWGP programme. The Business Competitiveness strand provides companies with a structured business improvement programme with access to specialist delivery partners. Engagement with regional development agencies and clusters will ensure that support is additional and complementary to existing regional support programmes.

There are three levels of support:

• Introductory level – helping companies to be ready to respond to tenders; covering sector specific processes, quality, health and safety.
• Advanced level – access to specialist support from delivery partners to implement a programme of improvements.
• Demonstration level – enabling small-scale trials of new operations or processes.

Strand C – Building New Capacity

Increasing the breadth of the UK supply chain by attracting cross-sector engagement and enabling new entrants to join sector.

The growth of the offshore wind sector has created significant opportunities for involvement from other sectors with relevant capabilities. The Building New Capacity strand will build on the outputs of the Whitmarsh Review and support the process of targeting and facilitating new entrants. Particular focus will be on building on UK strengths and the importance of IP management to sustainable growth.

Strand D – Supply Chain Futures

Ensuring the long-term sustainability of the UK supply chain companies requires the development of the next generation of technologies both for UK but also to meet the specific requirements of global markets.

The Supply Chain Futures strand will support companies developing new innovations and UK intellectual property in growth areas such as robotics, advanced manufacturing, new materials and automation. This focuses on supporting existing supply chain companies to expand their range of products and services to meet the future needs of the sector.

 

Restrictions

OWGP will support UK companies that have the potential to work in the offshore wind sector providing products or services to UK and global markets. We are looking for companies that can bring cross-sector skills and experience, create UK jobs, develop and commercialise technology, and reduce the cost of offshore wind.

OWGP is a national programme but it will work closely with local enterprise partnerships, councils and development agencies to complement the activity in each of the clusters identified through the Sector Deal.

Who runs it?

The Offshore Wind Growth Partnership

How to find out more?

Click here to find out more.