North Tyneside offshore wind specialist unveils latest tech innovation in London

A North Shields based tech firm which has helped deliver some of the world’s largest offshore wind farms has unveiled a new software solution to address the key challenges associated with offshore energy transmission systems.

Taking to the Innovation Stage at Global Offshore Wind in London yesterday (June 14), Kinewell Energy officially launched its Kinewell Designing Offshore Transmission Systems (KDOTS) software solution to an audience comprising some of the biggest names in energy.

The brainchild of senior R&D and consultant engineer, Dr Henna Bains, KDOTS was developed alongside researchers at Durham University and the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult

It uses advanced mathematical methods to help developers identify the easiest, most cost-effective ways of transmitting energy from offshore wind farms to shore whilst also considering various sources of uncertainty in such decision-making processes.

Dr Bains first envisioned the concept in 2017 while studying for a PhD in engineering at Durham University co-supervised by ORE Catapult.

At that time, the wind energy research group at Durham University had also secured major funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) to research impacts of uncertainty into operational planning decisions for far-offshore wind farms.

The overlaps between the two projects led to securing further funding through the EPSRC Impact Acceleration Account (IAA) and the ORE Catapult, to explore routes to deploy the technology, as an integrated planning platform, leading to a collaboration with Kinewell Energy.

Six years later, Dr Bains now works full-time at Kinewell Energy and is finally seeing the fruits of her labour, after proudly introducing her innovation to the world.

She commented: “It was fantastic to take to the stage at Global Offshore Wind and finally introduce KDOTS, marking the culmination of over six years’ worth of intense research and development.

“I spent the best part of six years researching the concept, both through my PhD where I developed code for planning transmission systems and during a year of extra research, however it wasn’t until I was introduced to the Kinewell Energy team in 2020 that I realised just how much potential it had.

“Not only did we have a shared ambition of improving operation and infrastructure planning in offshore wind, but they were also North East of England based and had a team of experts committed to helping bring it to market. I couldn’t have asked for a better partner to help commercialise the product and I’m delighted with the response it has received so far.”

By Matthew Neville – Senior Correspondent, Bdaily

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