A North Tyneside tech start-up is predicting huge growth after landing a contract to help develop one of the world’s largest offshore wind developments.
Kinewell Energy – launched by Dr Andrew Jenkins in 2015 when he was a PhD student at Newcastle University – has sealed the deal with Big Six energy supplier SSE Renewables to map out its Berwick Bank Wind Farm development. The wind farm, in the Outer Firth of Forth, has the potential to deliver up to 4.1 GW of installed capacity, meaning it will be able to power more than five million homes and become one of the largest projects of its kind, anywhere in the world.
Since its launch, Kinewell Energy’s KLOC (Kinewell Layout Optimisation of Cable) software solution – which will be deployed by SSE Renewables at Berwick Bank - has been used across the globe. The system typically saves offshore wind developers in the region of 20% of the cable cost over the project life, by playing ‘dot-to-dot’ to find the most cost-effective way of linking up turbines with cable to collect the energy generated.
