FOCUS ON BLYTH
FEATURE SPONSOR
OUT WITH THE OLD...
BLYTH, HOME TO THE NATIONAL RENEWABLE ENERGY CENTRE
NEW LEASE OF LIFE
For the past ten years, Blyth has been home to Narec
Located on a regenerated port-side site along the river Blyth in Northumberland; where the world’s first dedicated aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal was built and the first offshore wind farm in the UK was installed in 2001, the site has provided Narec with the necessary infrastructure to build upon to establish world-leading testing and R&D facilities to accelerate the development and deployment of offshore renewable energy technologies in the UK.
The once disused dry dock facilities have now been given a new lease of life and adapted to create a controlled onshore environment to perform prototype development, equipment trials, prove installation techniques, performance verification and witness tests for the offshore energy sector.
ENGINEERING, PROCUREMENT AND CONSTRUCTION (EPC) CONTRACTORS The three docks now offer EPC contractors a real-life playground to trial their new technologies in a controlled environment, such as, novel pipeline and cable infrastructure installations, helping to reduce the risk of failure offshore and accelerate the technology generation cycle.
INVESTMENT AND RECENT DEVELOPMENTS
There has been further exciting and substantial developments at Narec in recent years with the investment of £150 million in the development of integrated research and testing facilities for the offshore renewable energy and marine industries.
These facilities are bringing innovative technologies to market by providing a controlled environment for accelerated life testing and proof of concept trials, helping to improve device reliability and reduce product costs.
DRIVE TRAIN TEST FACILITIES In 2012 Narec opened a new 3MW drive train test facility for the testing of tidal turbine drive trains. Following the facility’s successful commissioning with the Atlantis Resources Corporation AR1000 turbine, Siemens-owned Marine Current Turbines (MCT) is the second client to utilise the facility and is currently undertaking a six month testing programme on the first of their 1MW powertrain units developed for the SeaGen-S 2MW device.
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www.windenergynetwork.co.uk
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