Global Business Innovation Programme Taiwan Visit
Although Exo Engineering was selected for the Global Business Innovation Programme (GBIP) as part of Innovate UK EDGE Taiwan in December 2021, travel restrictions (COVID) did not allow the cohort to physically visit this key Asian market.
Therefore, during 2022 and early 2023 the cohort undertook a variety of events in the UK including virtual market engagement events to prepare for a physical visit. By March 2023, it was finally possible to make the trip we’ve been waiting for.
We travelled to Taipei where we met a number of key developers including Northland Power, Corio, Synera, Iberdrola and RWE. We then travelled to Tainan, where we had the pleasure to visit the ITRI offices where we arranged onward travel to Kaohsiung for the Wind Energy Asia event.
Our aims for the programme were to establish a productive partnership with key players in the Asian marine market, allowing us to develop our ecological enhancing ExoReef scour protection for deployment in Asian marine environments. In particular, this would help to reduce impacts on the seabed identified during the Environmental Impact Assessment stage.
The latest auction process for offshore wind development has now started and a selection of developers have already announced that they will be taking part. We wait with excitement to see which developers will be successful in the next round!
Our ExoReefs can be applied around turbine foundations as well as along cable routes, providing effective scour protection and supporting the colonisation of a wide range of species to help offshore wind projects achieve biodiversity net gain.
