Humber Renewables Champion Ben George has outlined his vision for Grimsby to become the global development hub for offshore wind operations and maintenance.
The general manager of the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult in the region was crowned in 2021, after the organisation established its centre of excellence in the port.
Now he wants to ensure the work to serve the turbines and associated equipment once up and running has a world stage for the innovation he is helping to influence.
Your chance: Enter the 2022 Humber Renewables Awards here
With the pandemic emerging as a deal was done for the office looking down the Royal Dock to RWE and Orsted’s ever growing sites, the working environment is finally being realised.
Mr George said: “We are focusing on a key area of innovation around offshore wind operations and maintenance, making offshore wind smarter, safer and greener. They are the three focus areas.
“There is lots of activity in all of these areas as they resonate with the sector and what the government is trying to do. Being more efficient, with less waste, and more focus on clean maritime and a circular economy is what people see we need to do.
“A particular project, one of the things I’m aiming to pursue, is to make the Humber the global centre of growth for offshore wind operations and maintenance development, demonstration and testing. It is not just a regional thing, we are trying to leverage the capability we have here and the existing built assets.
“We have the experience, the knowledge base and understanding that is required by the rest of the world.
“O&M jobs are the jobs for the long term, they don’t gust with the markets. Grimsby services close to one third of the offshore wind farms in the country, and it will do for decades, and with the growth plan for offshore wind the Humber is going to be the major hub in the UK.
“There will be many other ‘Grimsbys’ around the world as the rest of the world wakes up, so it is about using this experience we have to establish Grimsby in that innovator role and keep ourselves at the leading edge of operations and maintenance, keep ourselves relevant and build that expertise for the rest of the world as it looks to learn from us and buy from us, be it personnel or technology.”
Mr George, a former Australian fighter pilot and instructor, originally came to the Humber to work with BAE Systems on a mid-life systems upgrade for the Hawk jets.
He had set up the project, secured almost £150,000 in funding for it, then worked with the engineers as the end-user representative, developing the technology required.
Hailing from New South Wales, he settled on the Humber, leaving the Department of Defence to play a key role in establishing Aura Innovation Centre with University of Hull.
He joined Catapult in late 2019, the technology innovation and research centre that unites industry and academia.
“The opportunities for the Humber are finally starting to bear some fruit,” he said. “The region, in recent years, has really woken up to the scale of the opportunity, and what the Humber’s potential is with the green transition.
“We are not just talking about green energy, but the decarbonisation of industry and the transition of the workforce and skills base in the region into green fields.”
Telling how he was “very humbled at the time”, and “honoured to be recognised” at the 2021 Humber Renewables Awards, he sees a real shift in attitude to the wider climate calling.
“We are starting to see a social transition as well,” he said of the progress, stating recent announcements on deployment acceleration are “hugely welcome” but firm in the belief there is scope for more.
“For the longest time, one of the hardest things has been not in the development of the tech, but getting the green message out to the general populace, and that has started to shift noticeably.
“People are starting to think a lot more, we are seeing it with children, it is bubbling up in curriculums at school, and friends and people I know not necessarily associated with the green sectors are really starting to get it.
“The pandemic has perhaps accelerated it, people were able to take a step back, notice the difference they were making simply by not driving a car every day. We’re also seeing more demand for alternatives to single use plastics.
“There are lots of little examples, and we talk about renewables, but we’re trying to pick up on a much bigger sustainability question for us as a species and for our planet. One of the things that has been realised is that the economy doesn’t work if we don’t have a planet. The penny has started to drop.”
Entries are open for the Humber Renewables Awards 2022, with a deadline of April 29.
Celebrating a 10th year of recognising success in the green economy, inspired by efforts on the Energy Estuary, the event takes place at DoubleTree by Hilton Forest Pines Hotel in North Lincolnshire on Thursday, June 9. For more details visit www.humberrenewables.com.
Ahead of that, Mr George will be leading on the Innovation Theatre at Offshore Wind Connections, the Humber's national conference at Bridlington Spa later this month.
"We're keen to show innovation is accessible and something people can do," he said, with the aim of debunking some myths and demystifying the work. "It is not about inventing something, it is as much about doing things better," he said.
