When the Carbon Trust was founded nearly 25 years ago, one of our core challenges was how to de-risk and scale emerging low-carbon technologies, particularly those in the pre-commercial phase, with limited budgets. To address this, we applied an accelerator model: a collaborative approach bringing together government and corporate funding to invest in applied innovation, reduce technology costs, and overcome market barriers, ultimately enabling commercial adoption.

In the current geopolitical and economic environment, with business leaders under pressure to meet short-term needs while staying focused on long-term climate goals, we’ve found that accelerators and other industry collaboration programmes can be a powerful path forward. By sharing costs and risks, companies can develop solutions that are more resilient, cost-effective, and impactful – enabling businesses to address the climate crisis through industry-wide action, while also unlocking growth and economic opportunity. 

To help bring this to life, I wanted to share our learnings from our Offshore Wind Accelerator, which was our first industry collaboration programme focused on a sector that at the time faced significant cost challenges compared to more established sources such as gas-fired power. The programme was launched in 2008 with initial pump-priming support from the UK government, alongside material contributions from several leading corporate partners and since then, has developed into a large scale research, development and demonstration (RD&D) programme delivering substantial impact - investing over £100 million in innovation, helping to reduce the levelised cost of offshore wind by approximately 15%, and generating an estimated £34 billion in savings against 2030 growth targets.

Our learnings on what made the programme a success were the following, starting with a clear commercial opportunity and well-defined problem to solve

Given the North Sea’s high-quality wind resource, industry partners recognised the significant potential for offshore wind for the UK and EU, with government seeing the opportunity to position the UK as a global leader - unlocking growth, enhancing energy security, and advancing climate goals. The issue to address was clear and well-defined - to reduce the levelised cost of offshore wind to make it more competitive than gas. This clarity helped focus innovation efforts and align stakeholders around a common goal.

Aligning incentives, policy support, and pooling resources

Another key enabler for success was ensuring strategic alignment on both innovation funding and the policy framework to help accelerate market development. In terms of funding, because of the pooling effect, every £1 the government invested in the accelerator initially, yielded £2 of private sector investment. For industry partners, over time, every £1 invested leveraged £13 of investment in innovation from other parties in the accelerator.

The funding model involved two pots: one for applied R&D and a larger one for demonstration projects. All partners contributed annually to the R&D pot; for demonstrations, partners could opt in selectively. In addition, long-term policy commitments, such as capacity and evolving commercial mechanisms (e.g. Contracts for Difference in the UK), provided the confidence and continuity to drive material investment.

Sharing risk and scaling impact

The Offshore Wind Accelerator’s structure was designed to de-risk innovation and investment, with government support concentrated in the early years to reduce initial risk for the industry. Innovation challenges were then collaboratively defined, ensuring relevance and shared ownership, with demonstration funding enabling technologies to be tested at scale in real-world conditions.

The accelerator model created a scalable pathway for sector-wide transformation where innovators retained IP and could access funding to help build and deploy their technologies, which encouraged market-driven solutions and broader participation. The programme also sparked the development of other joint industry/collaboration initiatives such as the Integrator programme, which aims to maximise the contribution of offshore wind to a low cost, predictable and low carbon energy future.

Looking ahead

The Offshore Wind Accelerator can be seen as a blueprint for what’s possible when business sectors come together to address shared challenges and common goals. Its success has been a catalyst for the development of other industry collaboration programmes we are currently working on for hydrogen, coal transition, energy access, and the food and agriculture sector.

By sharing our learnings and the enablers of success, we hope to spark new conversations, partnerships and encourage more organisations to explore what’s possible through industry collaboration. By pooling expertise and resources, we can de-risk innovation, scale climate solutions and accelerate both Net Zero progress and economic opportunity together.