Pioneering North East AI company wins contract to optimise South Korean offshore wind farm
A North East company which is pioneering the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to make offshore wind farms faster and cheaper to build has been awarded a contract to work its magic on a major project off the coast of South Korea.
Kinewell Energy, led by its founder Dr Andrew Jenkins, uses AI to optimise the layout of subsea cables between wind turbines, supporting offshore wind farm developers both directly or by licensing them to use its software.
Now, Blue Wind Engineering has awarded Kinewell the contract for the optimisation of substation location and the inter-array cable route for the 600 MW Wando-Guemil project in South Korea.
The project is being developed by KEON, supported by Dohwa and Blue Wind Engineering.
Blue Wind Engineering has engaged Kinewell to bring its KLOC (Kinewell Layout Optimisation of Cable) software to bear, prioritising the optimisation of capital costs against operational costs such as electrical distribution losses.
Kinewell CEO Dr Jenkins said: “We are delighted to have been selected by Blue Wind Engineering to support them on this exciting project. Our unique KLOC technology will help maximise the value of the project, through optimising both the substation location and the inter-array cable system.”
Dr Jone Oh, CEO of Blue Wind Engineering, said: “We are looking forward to working with the Kinewell Energy team on this project, and the value-added they bring through their KLOC inter-array cable layout optimisation technology.”
The contract follows the global launch of Kinewell Energy’s next-generation KLOC software at the Global Offshore Wind conference, staged in Sunderland last summer.
Kinewell Energy developed its game-changing innovation with a share of £3.5m in matched funding from the North of Tyne Combined Authority’s TIGGOR programme, delivered by the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult.
Dr Jenkins added: “This contract is testament to the success of our team delivering on the objectives of TIGGOR; creating highly innovative green jobs to develop new technology right here in the North East and exporting our world leading capabilities all over the globe.”
Kinewell Energy is a rapidly growing company and has a successful history of delivering both inter-array optimisation consultancy and KLOC licensing to the European, Japanese, US, South Korean and Chinese offshore wind markets.
The team have experience of delivering over 13.1 GW of offshore wind cable layout optimisation projects, in addition to those projects undertaken by clients under license.
For more information on Kinewell, click here.
