Offshore renewable energy gets yet another software boost from North East IT company

A North East IT company whose software is saving the offshore wind farm industry millions in building costs has come up with yet another valuable innovation.

It was unveiled this month at the Innovation Stage at the Global Offshore Wind conference in London.

Taking to the event’s innovation stage, Kinewell Energy officially launched its KDOTS (Kinewell Designing Offshore Transmission Systems) software solution to an audience comprising some of the biggest names in energy.

The brainchild of senior R&D and consultant engineer, Dr Henna Bains, KDOTS uses advanced maths to help developers find the easiest, most cost-effective ways to transmit energy from sea to shore.

Dr Bains first envisioned the concept in 2017 while studying for a PhD in engineering at Durham University co-supervised by ORE Catapult, the Blyth-based regional innovation centre for offshore renewable energy (ORE).

At that time, the wind energy research group at Durham University was also researching impacts of uncertainty into operational planning decisions for far-offshore wind farms.

The overlaps between the two projects led to a collaboration with Kinewell Energy to produce the software to deal with both issues.

Six years later, Dr Bains now works full-time at Kinewell Energy and is finally seeing the fruits of her labour, after proudly introducing her innovation to the world.

She said: “It was fantastic to take to the stage at Global Offshore Wind and finally introduce KDOTS.

“I spent the best part of six years researching the concept, both through my PhD, where I developed code for planning transmission systems, and during a year of extra research.

“However, it wasn’t until I was introduced to the Kinewell Energy team in 2020 that I realised just how much potential it had.

“Not only did we have a shared ambition of improving operation and infrastructure planning in offshore wind, but they were also North East of England-based and had a team of experts committed to helping bring it to market.

“I couldn’t have asked for a better partner to help commercialise the product and I’m delighted with the response it has received so far.”

Since its launch in 2015, Kinewell Energy’s cable layout and heatmapping solutions have been utilised by some of the world’s largest energy providers on offshore wind projects, totalling over 13.1Gigawatts, and the company is confident that KDOTS will prove to be just as big a success.

Founder Dr Andrew Jenkins added: “Seeing Henna launch KDOTS at Global Offshore Wind was a proud moment for everyone associated with the company.

“Henna has created a platform which can help not only consider the hundreds of relevant options, but also factor in many of the uncertainties to enable clients to choose the most appropriate export system for their specific risk profile.

“It’s like nothing the world has seen before and we’re delighted that, with our partners in both the public and private sectors, we will now be able to utilise this technology alongside our existing solutions to help speed up the rate of adoption of wind power the world-over.”

Dr Behzad Kazemtabrizi, Associate Professor at Durham University, said: “This work is the culmination of years of research into large-scale wind energy integration carried out at Durham University.

“It is a great example of how interdisciplinary research can work successfully toward a common goal in which state-of-the-art mathematical and statistical methods have been coupled with engineering know-how to further our progress toward a net zero future.”

Paul McKeever, head of electrical research at ORE Catapult, added: “I have been working with the teams at Kinewell Energy and Durham University for several years now and it is fantastic to see this work starting to fulfil its significant potential in commercial applications.

“The offshore renewable sector needs to develop new and improved processes to assist the huge scale-up and industrialisation challenges that lie ahead as we strive to meet the 2030 and 2050 net zero targets.

“The optimisation of the transmission system is certainly one of those challenges and the development of KDOTS, coupled with Kinewell Energy’s KLOC software platform, are just two of a wider set of excellent offerings from the team who are focused on providing flexible and optimised solutions for its client base.”