Manor Renewable Energy has received a GBP 50,000 grant from the SCORE fund to help design a sister vessel to Manor Venture, currently working for Siemens on the Galloper offshore wind farm.
According to Manor Renewable Energy, the design of the GBP 4 million wind farm service vessel (WFSV) will be completed over the next year, after which it will be built at the company’s construction yard in Portland.
The SCORE fund will help further research on what features, design and capability the second vessel would need in order to save more time on projects, thus saving costs. The received input will be used by Walker Marine Design, the naval architecture company who also designed Manor Venture.
“The Manor Venture has been brilliant and innovative in itself, but we are now looking at how we can increase its lifting capacity with different types of cranes and winches but without having to use a DP (dynamic positioning) vessel, which is very costly if not necessary,” David Burrows , Business Development Manager at Manor Renewable Energy, said.
“Things we are looking to introduce include more comfortable motions on board with comfortable cabin space so people can stay for much longer periods offshore, catering personnel permanently on board, day and night shifts incorporating new technologies that aren’t seen in conventional crew vessels.”
Manor Renewable Energy said it also wants to find out what else the company can do when at sea, such as remedial work, O&M, sea fastening design and fabrication, bolting and tensioning works.
SCORE (Supply Chain innovation for Offshore Renewable Energy) offers grants of up to GBP 50,000 to help companies across England to develop new products, processes and ideas – from patenting a product to exploring concepts that offer new ways of solving problems and driving efficiency in offshore renewables.
The program is delivered by Nwes in partnership with Nautilus Associates and the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult.