Welcome to the Offshore Renewable Energy Research Group

The ORE research group is led by Dr Jimmy Murphy, based at the SFI MaREI Centre at the ERI, have positioned UCC at the forefront of research in the ORE sector. Their work is vital to support Ireland’s ambition of transitioning to a zero-carbon economy. The teams’ multidisciplinary expertise spans the offshore wind, wave, tidal and floating solar energy sectors. Through successful funding applications and an extensive network of industry collaborators, they have developed an international reputation in the development and evaluation of ORE technologies including the optimization of offshore operations and minimization of Levelised Cost of Energy (LCoE).

The ORE team has had extraordinary success in securing EU, national and industry-led project funding – playing a significant role in supporting UCC funding targets. In 2023 alone, they secured €7.5million in UCC funding as part of projects worth a total of €23.8million. They currently coordinate projects worth over €23.5million and participate in projects worth over €74million. A key research achievement in 2023 was securing Floating Wind Testbed integrated with Energy System Observatory (FLOWT-EOB), a €4.8million SFI-SEAI funded project. This will primarily comprise a 200kW floating wind platform deployed in Cork Harbour which will be unique worldwide. FLOWT-EOB will add to the university’s infrastructure and testing capacity alongside the ORE teams’:

- Coordination of the ESFRI MARINERG-i project, a European network of testing facilities, united to support deployment of ORE technologies;

- Leadership of the ORE testing campaign of the RiseEnergy project;

- Management of the LIR National Ocean Test Facility, which conducted 102 days of industry testing in 2023 e.g. PureMarineGen; X1Wind and MPS.

The group regularly publish in high-impact journals, including 12 journal papers and 3 conference papers in 2023. They are dedicated to Open Science and FAIR data, making 5 datasets and 2 tools open-access. The latter includes a GIS Techno-Economic tool, which is being actively used to support ORE development planning by the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications. The team’s international standing is demonstrated by their participation in three International Energy Association Wind TCP tasks (53, 48 and 49) on wind energy economics, airborne wind and floating wind array designs. Dr Murphy also participates as a representative on the European Implementation working group for wind.

The group are very active in stakeholder engagement e.g. they are producing the IDEA-IRL podcast series to promote knowledge about floating offshore wind https://shows.acast.com/idea-irl-podcast. The ORE Group nurtures students conducting labs 1st years for engineering students; participating in the STEP4WIND Marie-Curie doctorate programme and the FLOAWER network providing training for early-stage researchers; and coordinating school visits to LIR National Ocean Test Facility.

Vacancies

Vacancies on the Offshore Renewable Energy Research Group are advertised on University College Cork's Job Vacancies web-page which is updated weekly.

General inquiries regarding vacancies may also be sent to oreresearch@ucc.ie.

Research Centres

The Offshore Renewable Energy Research Group is supported by MaREI and the ERI. Please see below for more information on these research centres.