The offshore wind initiative includes Mainstream Renewable Power and Statkraft and the five founding members DONG Energy; RWE Innogy; ScottishPower Renewables; SSE Renewables and Statoil, who will be extending their commitment to the OWA over the next four years bringing the total investment into the project to £9.2 million.

Collectively the OWA partners represent 61% of the offshore wind capacity licensed in UK waters (30 GW).

The OWA has the objective to reduce offshore wind costs by 10% over the next decade which would enable deployment to happen faster.

Michael Lewis, European Managing Director of E.ON’s Renewable business says: “E.ON has installed 64% of all offshore capacity in Europe so far this year, and we have another 4000 MW of offshore wind in our project pipeline, so reducing the cost is of vital importance to us. The OWA will help focus the industry’s efforts to tackle the big issues in a coordinated way and the results will benefit us all”.

Tom Delay, Chief Executive of the Carbon Trust, says: “In terms of the investment and scale of engineering, the UK’s offshore wind challenge is equivalent to building 8 channel tunnels over the next 10 years.

“To ensure the UK meets its target of 15% renewable energy by 2020, some £75 billion of capital investment could be required without the benefit of new lower cost technologies. To succeed in the creation of a world leading offshore wind sector we need collaboration between industry and government to bring down costs by finding the most effective engineering solutions.”