Name: Srinivasan Santhakumar
Country of origin: India
Host University: University of Groningen, Netherlands
Main supervisor: prof. dr. A.P.C. André Faaij, University of Groningen
Industry partners: Offshore Renewable Energies Catapult (Scotland), The Norwegian Oil and Gas Association, Shell (Netherlands), Aalborg University (Denmark)

The main objective of the project is to investigate how key offshore renewable energy technologies, infrastructures will develop over time in terms of improvements, scale- up and implementation.

This will help in analysing how these developments will play an important role in North Sea energy transition. Experience curve approach and similar methodologies will be used in this project to understand and compare the development of offshore energy technologies.

Some of the expected projects results are:

• Learning curves for low carbon technologies relevant for North Sea region.
• Detailed description of learning curves for technologies that are poorly studied to date like macro-algae production systems and wave energy options.
• Quantified roadmaps, development and deployment pathways for offshore energy technologies in the North Sea region. How this project will contribute to society?
• The outcome of the project will be beneficial for policy makers, governments and energy companies to understand the technology development in offshore industry and able to identify the market support necessary to make these technologies cost competitive.
• Also, other interdisciplinary questions which will cover the broader perspective of energy transition like spatial claims in North Sea, cost projection will be answered through collaboration works with relevant researchers in the project.