Liverpool Bay already holds one of the world's largest concentrations of offshore wind turbines, and the region's second-largest tidal range is now being harnessed for a new training centre that will produce 52 PhD researchers focused on maritime energy. The UK government's push to expand offshore renewable generation has created a critical skills gap: engineers who can design, build, and connect marine energy infrastructure while balancing environmental impacts. The N0MES Centre for Doctoral Training at the University of Liverpool and Liverpool John Moores University will fill that gap. Its researchers will tackle four specific challenges: generating energy from offshore wind, tidal, wave, floating solar, hydrogen, and carbon capture; distributing that energy from sea to shore, including port and inland effects; assessing short- and long-term environmental consequences; and decommissioning or extending the life of existing facilities. If successful, the centre will produce flexible, interdisciplinary leaders who can move between projects as priorities shift—directly feeding the workforce that will build and maintain the UK's offshore energy grid, a system most people never see but rely on for clean electricity.
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The Government's commitment to increasing offshore and marine renewable energy generation presents significant technological challenges in designing, commissioning and building the infrastructure, connecting offshore generation to onshore usage, and considering where these new developments are best placed, whilst balancing the impact they have upon the environment. In tandem, this commitment presents opportunities to advance UK capabilities in cutting-edge engineering and technologies in pursuit of net zero. Liverpool is home to one of the largest concentrations of offshore wind turbines globally in Liverpool Bay, the second largest tidal range in the UK, some of the largest names of maritime engineering alongside numerous SMEs, and the Port of Liverpool, a Freeport and Investment Zone status. The latest Science and Innovation Audit (2022) highlights Net Zero and Maritime as an emerging regional capability, and is an area in which the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority has stated its ambition to grow an innovation cluster. The University of Liverpool and Liverpool John Moores University each host world-class research expertise, environments and facilities relevant to addressing these maritime energy challenges, and have an established, shared track record in collaboration with industrial and civic partners. The Centre for Doctoral Training in Net Zero Maritime Energy Solutions (N0MES CDT) will play a vital role in filling critical skills gaps by delivering 52 highly trained researchers (PGRs), skilled in the identification, understanding, assessment, and solutions-delivery of pressing challenges in maritime energy. N0MES PGRs will pursue new, engineering-centred, interdisciplinary research to address four vital net zero challenges currently facing the North West, the UK and beyond: (a) Energy generation using maritime-based renewable energy (e.g. offshore wind, tidal, wave, floating solar, hydrogen, CCS) (b) Distributing energy from offshore to onshore, including port- and hinterland-side impacts and opportunities (c) Addressing the short- and long-term environmental impacts of offshore and maritime environment renewable energy generation, distribution and storage (d) Decommissioning and lifetime extension of existing energy and facilities The N0MES CDT will empower its graduates to communicate, research and innovate across disciplines, and will develop flexible leaders who can move between projects and disciplines as employer priorities and scientific imperatives evolve.
Andrew Plater (Co-Investigator)Jin Wang (Co-Investigator)Karl Whittle (Co-Investigator)Trung Thanh Nguyen (Co-Investigator)Zaili Yang (Co-Investigator)
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