We first met Dr Andrew Jenkins, CEO and founder of Kinewell at 2024’s Offshore Wind North East event – and we knew straight away that we needed to interview him on our Invented Podcast!
Kinewell uses AI and advanced mathematics to create software solutions that accelerate and reduce the cost of the transition to net-zero, and is focused on optimising offshore wind design.
From its beginnings as a bedroom start-up, the Newcastle upon Tyne-based company has developed solutions for inter-array cable layout optimisation, export system design and turbine layout optimisation – and is now working with some of the world’s largest energy companies.
Dr Jenkins gave us some fascinating insights in our Joining The Dots In Offshore Wind episode of Invented last year. And we caught with him again in February, at Kinewell’s Open Innovation Day, at the Energy Central Learning Hub in Blyth, where the focus was on collaboration, connection and problem solving in floating offshore wind.
Funded by the TIGGOR (Technology, Innovation and Green Growth for Offshore Renewables) programme and hosted by The Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult (ORE Catapult), the event saw speakers and delegates from across the offshore wind sector converge on Blyth.
Here, Dr Jenkins updates us on the company’s recent progress – and discusses why innovation is so crucial for the growth of floating offshore wind.
Where did the idea for running an Open Innovation Day on floating offshore wind come from?
The Energi Coast cluster have identified that the North East England has a technical potential of 72GW of offshore wind, with over half of that deemed to be deep water and likely to require floating wind or adjacent technologies. If we can solve the challenges to make those deep water projects investable, it could unlock 100 billion pounds in private investment opportunity for our region.
But for innovation to happen, you need it to be a two-way discussion. You need people to be open about their problems as much as how they can solve others’ problems. That’s what’s needed to drive the industry forwards. Unless all of the problems are solved to enable projects to progress to construction, no one wins.
Why was it important to hold the event in Blyth?
Put simply, because the North East of England is backing offshore wind.
We have globally leading capability through the testing facilities at the ORE Catapult, world class research-intensive universities, which, when combined, are the strongest research capability in the UK outside of London, and a heritage built around innovation and engineering from William Armstrong’s invention of the hydraulic crane to load our ships and export our coal, to repurposing of the legacy shipyards to build the future of offshore wind.
It is not a coincidence that the North East Combined Authority (NECA) wants to double the regional renewables workforce to 50,000 by 2035, and through interventions like the TIGGOR programme they are putting their money where their mouth is. We at Kinewell are living proof of the jobs that have been created and that it is working.
What do you feel are the key challenges in scaling up floating offshore wind?
It comes down to cost reduction. If you make the projects economical, people will invest and it will happen. Yes, in engineering you can make anything happen if you put enough money behind it, but it’s got to be economical. There are technical challenges in that which need to be engineered out, which we have done when developing our digital offshore wind design tools that drive the costs down.
Our core technical capability is the offshore wind engineering expertise, which we combine with data science, advanced mathematics, optimization and AI to create productivity enhancing and cost reducing digital tools. We then combine those tools with full stack software development expertise to create intuitive web-based interfaces, enabling engineers to leverage the power of the advanced mathematics.
Last year, Kinewell was selected for the latest round of the TIGGOR programme, funded by the North East Combined Authority and delivered by ORE Catapult. How has this helped the business to progress?
With TIGGOR’s support, at our Open Innovation Day we launched a new software tool called KOMET, a floating offshore wind mooring evaluation tool. Some of the external speakers at our innovation day were talking about the challenge of considering over 140 different floating platforms being designed and developed around the world, which then need to be combined with a decision on which type of mooring system and which type of anchor system to use. Bring this all together and there are literally thousands of possible combinations of floaters, mooring lines and anchors. At an early stage, someone has to narrow these down and select the best option for more detailed engineering design. Our KOMET solution introduces automation software to this process. KOMET evaluates the different combinations, cuts through the noise, and provides a greater level of modelling fidelity than would otherwise be possible.
TIGGOR has also helped us to accelerate further development of our Kinewell Layout Optimisation of Cable (KLOC) software, to provide a new carbon optimisation capability. This is in response to the Clean Industry Bonus mechanism that requires offshore wind developers to consider the embodied carbon within their supply chain and to build not just low cost wind farms but also cleaner low carbon wind farms.
Last year was certainly an exciting one for Kinewell. As well as being selected for TIGGOR 2.5, the company was awarded the King’s Award for Enterprise for International Trade by His Majesty King Charles III, and you also signed a global contract renewal with Equinor. So what’s on the horizon for Kinewell in 2026?
We are an ambitious and growing team. Consequently, we will be creating 10 new North East-based green jobs over the next couple of months. We are really excited for what is to come – there will be some major announcements to follow, so watch this space!
For more information on Kinewell, visit kinewell.co.uk.