The Offshore Wind Demonstrator will be located offshore from Narec’s Blyth headquarters, and will enable wind turbine manufacturers to develop novel approaches across the supply chain for new technologies that will aid the delivery of Round 3 and Scottish Territorial Water offshore wind projects.

It will provide facilities for the testing and demonstration of prototype and pre-production offshore wind turbines, with the opportunity to also study alternative foundation types, construction methods and remote monitoring.

The offshore wind demonstration scheme will consist of up to 20 pre-consented ‘pods’ at which tenants may deploy their prototypes, demonstration turbines and foundations. These pods will be in up to four rows, increasing in distance offshore and with water depths of approx 20 m, 35 m, 45 m and 55 m to allow testing of alternative installation methods and foundation types.

Natural Power’s ecology team will co-ordinate the baseline ornithology and marine mammal surveys; the technical team is working with Narec to refine the estimates of the long term wind resource available across the site; marine engineers will be undertaking metocean and coastal processes modelling in partnership with Partrac; and Natural Power’s ZephIR wind lidar has already been deployed on site and is up and running providing remote wind resource measurements up to 200 m from ground level.