Quicker offshore wind farm construction and geothermal win funding – Energy Live News

The government has chosen 17 projects that will receive funding of up to £50,000 each to respond to some of the world’s most pressing challenges, including climate change.One of the projects aims to fast track the construction of large-scale offshore wind farms in the Celtic Sea from 2025 onwards.The South West Floating Offshore Wind Accelerator, led by Wave Hub, expects the project to enable the region to make a contribution to Britain’s 40GW offshore wind target by 2030 and a five-fold increase in Britain’s offshore wind exports.Another project will provide low cost, low carbon heat to homes and businesses in Scotland by extracting energy from disused and flooded mines in Glasgow. The HotScot consortium will oversee three new geothermal mine water projects and aims to deliver economic growth equivalent to £303 million and around 9,800 jobs.Trans-Mid, led by the University of Nottingham, will partner with transport technology businesses as well as local suppliers to the vehicle, aerospace and rail industries to develop new green projects, with the aim of establishing the Midlands as a supercluster for net zero transport.Business Secretary Alok Sharma said: “We are backing our innovators and with the support they need to turn great ideas into first-class industries, products and technologies.“From virtual construction projects to extracting clean heat from disused mines, the pioneering projects we are funding today will help create jobs and boost skills across the UK as we continue to drive forward our economic recovery.”Through the second round of UK Research and Innovation’s (UKRI) flagship Strength in Places Fund, each project will be able to apply for a further longer term investment of between £10 million to £50 million later this year, if the early stages of development are successful.