Equinor and BP have launched an Offshore Wind Innovation Hub in New York that they say will facilitate partnerships with start-ups that bring new technological solutions to the growing US offshore wind industry.
The initiative is being led by Equinor on behalf of its 50/50 joint venture with BP and is a result of a three-year partnership between Equinor, the Urban Future Lab (UFL) at the NY Tandon School of Engineering, and the National Offshore Wind R&D Consortium (NOWRDC), backed by the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC).
“ The new Innovation Hub will leverage the success of the Urban Future Lab in promoting and helping the launch of cleantech start-ups, fostering collaboration with the international incubator community to cultivate pilots and demonstration projects that accelerate advances in offshore wind”, according to a press release from Equinor.
The Innovation Hub will create a physical location where they will host educational programming, workshops, and curricula for the startups, as well as networking opportunities, and the hub will also serve as a centre for the industry’s innovation ecosystem.
In the next months, the partners will prepare a call for applications to find start-ups with technologies tackling challenges in front of US offshore wind. Once selected, the start-ups will then receive support and programming from UFL and NOWRDC, and could potentially become partners of Equinor.
The Innovation Hub will be located adjacent to Equinor and BP’s new project office in Sunset Park that serves as the base for the companies’ large-scale offshore wind operations, including the 816 MW Empire Wind 1, the 1.2 GW Empire Wind 2, and the 1.2 GW Beacon Wind 1 projects.