Dr Emma Edwards awarded prestigious Royal Academy of Engineering Fellowship for offshore wind energy research

Dr Emma Edwards, recent Career Development Fellow in Engineering Science at St Peter’s College, is the recipient of a prestigious Royal Academy of Engineering Fellowship. The Fellowship helps outstanding early-career researchers to become future research leaders by providing funding for an ambitious five-year programme of independent research.

Seeking to reduce the costs of offshore wind energy

Around 80% of the UK’s offshore wind resources lie in waters too deep for conventional fixed-bottom foundations. Floating turbines could unlock these resources, but their platforms currently cost around four times as much as fixed-bottom foundations. Reducing these costs will be essential if floating wind is to expand at the scale needed to support the UK’s net-zero ambitions.

Dr Edwards will examine how the shape and arrangement of floating structures influence their interaction with waves. By optimising these interactions, she aims to develop platforms that use less material, experience lower structural loads and deliver greater energy output.

The project will combine theoretical and numerical modelling to identify optimal geometries, followed by assessments of practical constraints, including structural survivability and manufacturability. Working with industry partners, Dr Edwards aims to develop one or two viable designs that reduce platform mass while increasing energy yield, with a pathway towards prototyping.

The research could help address one of the key barriers to scaling up floating offshore wind: the cost of the structures needed to support turbines in deep water. Dr Edwards will also develop tools that can be shared openly and help train the next generation of engineers specialising in offshore renewable energy.

Dr Edwards will build on research conducted during her recent Career Development Fellowship at St Peter’s College.

She said,

‘The opportunities granted through my Career Development Fellowship at St Peter's have been instrumental in allowing me to establish my independent research career. The fellowship gave me the time and support to develop my ideas into a strong fellowship proposal and build the track record and experience that ultimately enabled me to be successful in the application and interview. Teaching students at St Peter's also played an important role in my development – learning to explain complex concepts from first principles has strengthened both my understanding and my confidence. I want to give a huge thank you to Professor Tom Adcock, who mentored me through the Career Development Fellowship. He supported me through learning to teach tutorials, supervise graduate students, give my first lectures, apply for my first grants, and develop my ideas for my fellowship. I’m incredibly grateful for his support, and his mentorship has been instrumental in making this achievement possible!’

You can read more on the Department of Engineering Science's website.