A North Tyneside offshore specialist expects to double its workforce year-on-year following the launch of its latest product.
Kinewell Energy in North Shields, North Tyneside, was launched by Andrew Jenkins in 2015 when he was a PhD student at Newcastle University, getting support through the university’s Start Up programme. Since then, the electrical engineering consultancy has sought to create new jobs after becoming part of the North of Tyne Combined Authority (NTCA) TIGGOR programme, led by the ORE Catapult and backed by offshore wind industry giants Equinor and EDF Renewables to find innovative new technologies.
The firm was one of five from the North East to share a £2m match-funded cash pot to develop its technologies, with Kinewell Energy focusing on its KLOC (Kinewell Layout Optimisation of Cable) software, which helps to optimise the inter-array layouts of offshore wind farms.
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The next-generation KLOC tool uses cloud computing and is accessed via an intuitive web-app, which means licensed Software as a Service (SaaS) clients can access KLOC anywhere, anytime, using a desktop, laptop, tablet or even their mobile phone.
Mr Jenkins said Kinewell Energy’s KLOC solution typically saves offshore wind developers in the region of 20% of the cable cost over the project life. It does this by playing ‘dot-to-dot’ and finding the most cost-effective way of linking up the turbines with cable to collect the energy generated. The inter-array cable system, which KLOC makes more cost effective, typically costs around 11% of total offshore wind farm cost.
The firm has nine employees but that number is set to grow on the back of the new product’s potential.
Mr Jenkins said: “We’ve pioneered a new platform technology that enables many future innovations, which will be released to the market over the coming months, reducing the cost of offshore wind deployment and accelerating the transition to net-zero. The NTCA investment in us to deliver on this programme of innovation has been truly transformational.
“Our growth trajectory shows our headcount doubling roughly every year - which looks set to continue for the foreseeable future. KLOC has been licensed to a number of offshore wind project developers, consultancies and cable manufacturers spread across the European, Asia Pacific and Americas regions. The new web-app version of KLOC has had a very positive response from clients that have seen it, and we have already secured sales based on its introduction.”
