Fifty-five companies achieve ‘gold standard’ on journey to maximising success in the offshore renewables market

Steven Brown, Managing Director of First Marine Solutions.

Across the UK, over 100 companies have been supported by the F4OR programme that was designed alongside industry. Participating companies experience an average 28% increase in turnover, increase their staff by 5% on average and many have gone on to secure a wide range of new contracts.

Since F4OR began in 2019, five regional programmes have run in the North East of Scotland, North East of England, East Anglia and Suffolk, and national programmes run across Scotland and UK-wide.

First Marine Solutions, based in Aberdeen, specialise in mooring solutions for floating offshore installations, and they are one of the companies in the successful F4OR ‘granted’ community.

Steven Brown, Managing Director of First Marine Solutions said: “First Marine Solutions has been a supporter of ORE Catapult since its inception, recognising its ability to assist the UK supply chain in preparing to bid for work in the offshore renewable energy sector.

“Our successful completion of the Fit 4 Offshore Renewables programme underlined our commitment to delivering a single source of wind turbine mooring solutions, and since accreditation, we can report that our Glasgow-based Renewables team has doubled in size with future growth in mind, having recently moved into larger premises. 

“We are also very pleased to have supported ORE Catapult’s Floating Offshore Wind Centre of Excellence with a study which explored potential standard mooring system designs, which illustrates the transferability of existing offshore supply chain experience to the rapidly developing floating offshore wind market.”

The F4OR programme typically takes 12-18 months to complete, and it was designed to support companies bidding for work in the offshore renewable energy sector and boost the UK supply chain.

Andrew Macdonald, Director of Development and Operations at ORE Catapult, said: “The UK is on a sharp growth trajectory striving to meet our national target of increasing the generation of offshore wind power almost fivefold to 50GW by 2030, as we accelerate towards Net Zero.

“This creates a huge opportunity for the UK supply chain to grab a significant piece of that market, from design and manufacturing through to operations and maintenance of future offshore developments, creating jobs and economic benefit for the UK.

“It’s vitally important that we support our supply chain companies as they seek to win contracts with the new generation of UK offshore windfarms.”

Funding partners across the F4OR programmes have included the Scottish Government, New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnership, North of Tyne Combined Authority, Opportunity North East, Energy Transition Zone, and the Offshore Wind Growth Partnership.

The 55 companies that have achieved ‘granted’ status can be viewed at https://ore.catapult.org.uk/what-we-do/supply-chain-growth/fit-4-offshore-renewables/granted-companies/