The UK is leading the development and installation of offshore renewable energy technologies. With over 13GW of installed offshore wind capacity and another 3GW under construction, two operational and one awarded floating offshore demonstration projects as well as Contracts for Difference awards for four tidal energy projects, offshore renewable energy will provide the backbone of the Net Zero energy system, giving energy security, green growth and jobs in the UK. The revised UK targets that underpin the Energy Security Strategy seek to grow offshore wind capacity to 50 GW, with up to 5 GW floating offshore wind by 2030. Further acceleration is envisaged beyond 2030 with targets of around 150 GW anticipated for 2050. To achieve these levels of deployment, ORE developments need to move beyond current sites to more challenging locations in deeper water, further from shore, while the increasing pace of deployment introduces major challenges in consenting, manufacture and installation. These are ambitious targets that will require strategic innovation and research to achieve the necessary technology acceleration while ensuring environmental sustainability and societal acceptance. The role of the Supergen ORE Hub 2023 builds on the academic and scientific networks, traction with industry and policymakers and the reputation for research leadership established in the Supergen ORE Hub 2018. The new hub will utilise existing and planned research outcomes to accelerate the technology development, collaboration and industry uptake for commercial ORE developments. The Supergen ORE Hub strategy will focus on delivering impact and knowledge transfer, underpinned by excellent research, for the benefit of the wider sector, providing research and development for the economic and social benefit of the UK. Four mechanisms for leverage are envisaged to accelerate the ORE expansion: Streamlining ORE projects, by accelerating planning, consenting and build out timescales; upscaling the ORE workforce, increasing the scale and efficiency of ORE devices and system; enhanced competitiveness, maximising ORE local content and ORE economic viability in the energy portfolio; whilst ensuring sustainability, yielding positive environmental and social benefits from ORE. The research programme is built around five strategic workstreams, i) ORE expansion - policy and scenarios , ii) Data for ORE design and decision-making, iii) ORE modelling, iv) ORE design methods and v) Future ORE systems and concepts, which will be delivered through a combination of core research to tackle sector wide challenges in a holistic and synergistic manner, strategic projects to address emerging sector challenges and flexible funding to deliver targeted projects addressing focussed opportunities. Supergen Representative Systems will be established as a vehicle for academic and industry community engagement to provide comparative reference cases for assessing applicability of modelling tools and approaches, emerging technology and data processing techniques. The Supergen ORE Hub outputs, research findings and sector progress will be communicated through directed networking, engagement and dissemination activities for the range of academic, industry and policy and governmental stakeholders, as well as the wider public. Industry leverage will be achieved through new co-funding mechanisms, including industry-funded flexible funding calls, direct investment into research activities and the industry-funded secondment of researchers, with >53% industry plus >23% HEI leverage on the EPSRC investment at proposal stage. The Hub will continue and expand its role in developing and sustaining the pipeline of talent flowing into research and industry by integrating its ECR programme with Early Career Industrialists and by enhancing its programme of EDI activities to help deliver greater diversity within the sector and to promote ORE as a rewarding and accessible career for all.

Floating offshore wind turbine (FOWT) deployments are predicted to increase in the future and the outlook is that globally, 6.2 GW of FOWTs will be built in the next 10 years (https://tinyurl.com/camyybxk). Highly dynamic, free hanging power cables transport power generated by these FOWTs to substations and the onshore grid. Safety critical design of such power cables in order for them to operate in the ocean without failure is of utmost importance, given that these cables are highly expensive to install and replace and any down-time of turbine electrical output results in huge revenue loss. In FOWTs, a large length of the power cable, from the base of the floating foundation to the seabed, is directly exposed to dynamic loading caused by ocean waves, currents, and turbulence. Waves move the floating foundation, and currents produce cable oscillations generated by vortex shedding. In the water column a cable experiences enhanced dynamic loads and undergoes complicated motions. When a dynamic cable is installed in deep water, the upper portion of the cable is exposed to high mechanical load and fatigue, and the lower part to substantial hydrostatic pressure. Motion of the floating foundation in surge, sway, and heave causes the power cable to undergo oscillatory motions that in turn promote vortex-induced vibration (VIV) - which is analogous to the vibration experienced by long marine risers used in offshore oil and gas platforms. As a result, large and complex deflections of the cable occur at various locations along its length, altering its mechanical properties and strength, and eventually leading to fatigue-induced failure. The dynamic forces produce cyclical motions of the cable, and a sharp transition in cable stiffness is expected in cases where these motions and loads concentrate toward a rigid connection point. Repetition of the foregoing process and over-bending can also lead to fatigue damage to the cable. To date, hardly any research has been undertaken to investigate the 3-dimensional nature of VIV, dynamic loads, and motion of power cables subject to combined waves, currents, and turbulence. Moreover, no detailed guidance is given in design standards for the offshore wind industry on how to predict, assess, and suppress fatigue failure of dynamic cables under wave-current-turbulence conditions. Power cable failure is much more likely to occur if the design of such cables is based on poor understanding of the hydrodynamic interactions between cables and the ocean environment. This fundamental scientific research aims to investigate the dynamic loading, motion response, impact of vortex induced vibration and its suppression mechanism, and fatigue failure of subsea power cables subjected to combined 3-dimensional waves, currents, and turbulence. This research will be approached by both numerical and physical modelling of power cable's response. Controlled experimental tests on scale models of power cables will be undertaken in Edinburgh University's FloWave wave-current facility where multi-directional waves and currents of various combinations of amplitudes, frequencies, and directions can be generated. Advanced novel phenomenological wake oscillator models, calibrated and validated with FloWave experimental results, will be used to simulate the hydrodynamic behaviour of power cables. The resulting software tools, experimental data, analysis techniques for characterising cable dynamics and VIV, methodologies established for fatigue analysis, and other outcomes of this research will enhance the design of cost-effective power cables. By reducing uncertainty, our research will lead to increased reliability of offshore power cables, of benefit to the power cable manufacturing industry.

Tidal currents are known to have complex turbulent structures. Whilst the magnitude and directional variation of a tidal flow is deterministic, the characteristics of turbulent flow within a wave-current environment are stochastic in nature, and not well understood. Ambient upstream turbulent intensity affects the performance of a tidal turbine, while influencing downstream wake formation; the latter of which is crucial when arrays of tidal turbines are planned. When waves are added to the turbulent tidal current, the resulting wave-current induced turbulence and its impact on a tidal turbine make the design problem truly challenging. Although some very interesting and useful field measurements of tidal turbulence have been obtained at several sites around the world, only limited measurements have been made where waves and tidal currents co-exist, such as in the PFOW. Also, as these measurements are made at those sites licensed to particular marine energy device developers, the data are not accessible to academic researchers or other device developers. Given the ongoing development of tidal stream power in the Pentland Firth, there is a pressing need for advanced in situ field measurements at locations in the vicinity of planned device deployments. Equally, controlled generation of waves, currents and turbulence in the laboratory, and measurement of the performance characteristics of a model-scale tidal turbine will aid in further understanding of wave-current interactions. Such measurements would provide a proper understanding of the combined effects of waves and misaligned tidal stream flows on tidal turbine performance, and the resulting cyclic loadings on individual devices and complete arrays. The availability of such measurements will reduce uncertainty in analysis (and hence risk) leading to increased reliability (and hence cost reductions) through the informed design of more optimised tidal turbine blades and rotor structures. An understanding of wave-current-structure interaction and how this affects the dynamic loading on the rotor, support structure, foundation, and other structural components is essential not only for the evaluation of power or performance, but also for the estimation of normal operational and extreme wave and current scenarios used to assess the survivability and economic viability of the technology, and to predict associated risks. The proposal aims to address these issues through laboratory and field measurements. This research will investigate the combined effect of tidal currents, gravity waves, and ambient flow turbulence on the dynamic response of tidal energy converters. A high quality database will be established comprising field-scale measurements from the Pentland Firth, Orkney waters, and Shetland region, supplemented by laboratory-scale measurements from Edinburgh University's FloWave wave-current facility. Controlled experiments will be carried out at Edinburgh University's FloWave facility to determine hydrodynamic loads on a tidal current device and hence parameterise wave-current-turbulence-induced fatigue loading on the turbine's rotor and foundation.

Scotland has substantial wave and tidal energy resources and is at the forefront of the development of marine renewable technologies and ocean energy exploitation. The next phase will see these wave and tidal devices deployed in arrays, with many sites being developed. Although developers have entered into agreements with The Crown Estate for seabed leases, all projects remain subject to licensing requirements under the Marine Scotland Act (2010). As part of the licensing arrangements, environmental effects in the immediate vicinity of devices and arrays will be addressed in the EIA (Environmental Impact Assessment) process that each developer must undertake. It is essential, however, that the regulatory authorities understand how a number of multi-site developments collectively impact on the physical and biological processes over a wider region, both in relation to cumulative effects of the developments and marine planning responsibilities. At a regional scale, careful selection of sites may enable the optimum exploitation of the resource while minimising any environmental impacts to an acceptable level. The TeraWatt Consortium has been established through the auspices of The Marine Alliance for Science & Technology for Scotland (MASTS) with Heriot-Watt University, and the Universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Strathclyde, the Highlands and Islands and Marine Scotland Science (MSS). The consortium has the support and anticipates the full engagement of the marine renewable developers in many aspects of the work. The research programme has been designed to specifically respond to questions posed by Marine Scotland Science, the organisation responsible for providing scientific advice to the licensing authority. In particular to the following questions: (1) What is the best way to assess the wave and tidal resource and the effects of energy extraction on it? (2) What are the physical consequences of wave and tidal energy extraction? (3) What are the ecological consequences of wave and tidal energy extraction? The overarching objective of the research is to generate a suite of methodologies that can provide better understandings of, and be used to assess, the alteration of the resource from energy extraction, and of the physical and ecological consequence. Illustration of the use of these in key development area, such as the Pentland Firth and Orkney Waters, and their availability as tools will enable the acceleration of array deployments. The TeraWatt research programme is structured in 4 workstreams. The first, led by MSS, will collate all necessary data to be used, develop the hypothetical multi-site array configurations in conjunction with developers and evaluate acceptance criteria for impacts. The second led by Edinburgh University will use separate and coupled models of wave and tide at a resolution necessary to consider multi-site array effects on the resource, providing important inputs to workstreams 3 and 4 which will address in turn, the spatial changes in physical processes affecting sediments, the shoreline and seabed (led by Glasgow and Strathclyde), and the spatial changes affecting organisms living in the seabed, their distribution and the significance of these for other ecological processes (led by Heriot-Watt University). Each workstream will provide reviews of the methodologies used which will be synthesised into a single methods toolbox. Where possible all regional scale modelling, used to illustrate these methodologies, will be validated by field data and the consortium has assembled both existing and data not previously available, for this purpose with the support of MSS and marine renewable developers. The TeraWatt project, which will be managed by MASTS, envisages direct participation from industry in various aspects of its work, and has a number of wider knowledge exchange and stakeholder engagement activities planned.

Establish a transdisciplinary and cross-sector Community of Practice to share knowledge and best practice and unlock better-informed and improved resilience actions; Co-design researcher, community and practitioner training and guidance to improve partnership working and nurture the next generation of resilience champions; Use a needs-led approach to identify and respond to priority needs using the Flexible Fund to deliver small projects and secondments; Collate key insights, case studies and resources for policymakers and practitioners through a web platform, policy briefs and foresight documents; and Build ongoing practitioner and community-led evaluation and reflection to shape future learning, legacy and funding opportunities. Our activities will be complemented by four projects funded under the main call. These will be integrated within the N+, where we will work to amplify their significance and reach by providing a network for knowledge exchange, support for new collaborative initiatives, and to share findings with local, national and international stakeholders. The novelty of programme lies in our transdisciplinary team, innovative needs-led approach, and long-standing experience working on questions about place, scale and the exchange of knowledge across distinctive social, economic and environmental contexts. Crucially, all our activities are co-created with community stakeholders, policymakers, and UK coastal and marine management sectors, responding to their needs, existing knowledge assets and lived experiences to deliver robust policy impacts and toolkits with application to communities and places worldwide. Alongside co-designed events, workshops, secondments and training, our co-created outputs will include: Digital Engagement Platform; toolkits and cases studies; two foresight documents; two solution-focused reports; high-impact scholarly articles; and evaluation reports. In doing this, COAST-R will pioneer transdisciplinary, place-based and whole-systems approaches for better understanding coastal change, enhancing coastal and marine literacy, and building community resilience in precarious coastal places.