1.

Welcome from the Chair, Introductions and Apologies

Actions

Mark Goodall

Chair – welcomed everybody to meeting. Julian Munson:

• Energy Security Strategy – need to be on the front foot on this.

  Developing small task and finish group to volunteer to assess the details, pull together a response, and adapt our delivery plan accordingly. (Johnathan Reynolds, Peter Gudde, Tom McGarry, Bill Cattanach, Andy Holyland, Rob Bush & Simon Cheeseman offered their support).

  
  

  Chair:

• Actions in action log delivered. New action for today is to volunteer to Julian to support with T&F group.

• No comments on delivery plan.

• No comments on the minutes of the last meeting.

Form an Energy Security Strategy Task and Finish Group –volunteers noted.

Sector updates

Andrew Harston – offshore wind:

• Positive announcements for Norfolk Boreas and Vanguard. Hope for positive announcement this week for the East Anglia Hub.

• CfD auctions will take place annually which is a great incentive.

• There are three taskforces of the Offshore Wind Cluster Group (sector council) - skills, innovation, and outreach/communications.

  • Skills and outreach met on 8 March

  • Innovation TF met on 16 March

  • Good engagement. Rachel Bunn taking on leadership of skills group.

  • Tech East and LEP event on 12 May with Vattenfall and others; focus on technology and innovation in offshore wind

  • Catrin Jones from Vattenfall leading on outreach group –developed ‘East Wind’ identity for the regional cluster as the preferred option of the task group. Developed a suitable logo to try and ensure consistency with Generate brand. Next meeting is on 24 March, before the SNS.

• Will pitch at SNS to talk about next steps and ambitions.

  
  

  Tom McGarry – nuclear:

• 6-week extension for SZC requested just before Christmas by planning inspectorate to Secretary of State as part of the examination.

• Rather than the end of January, the planning inspectorate report was submitted at the end of February.

• Final MoU with Suffolk further education colleges was signed with Suffolk New College in January.

• Kwasi Kwarteng visited Sizewell B with £100m option in Sizewell C subject to planning approval.

• Relocation activity for Sizewell B underway, moving elements off Sizewell C site to Sizewell A area.

• Continuing engagement with local communities – including most impacted parish councils at the moment.

• Keen to ensure partners are well aware of funding opportunities committed by Sizewell C.

• Received questions from BEIS on the back of the planning inspectorate’s report regarding water supply, transport, etc and need responses in the first week of April.

• Nuclear Financing Bill has completed passage through the Lords with no amendments. Anticipate royal assent in coming weeks.

• Very active on investor relations front. In Berlin last week at an international conference with positive conversations.

• Government has indicated it will have a stake in Sizewell C.

• Supply chain activity has not stopped. Suffolk Chamber of Commerce has done a great job. Logistics event held recently. Event at Suffolk New College on 8 April. Working with EEEGR to energise Essex companies to support them in the supply chain.

• Everything is going according to plan. If it remains this way, royal assent for nuclear financing bill putting regulated asset base model in place. Would hope on 25 May there will be an announcement. Then expect an announcement from Government and EDF regarding stake in the project. In Q3 would apply for regulated asset licence from Ofgem. FID in Q1 2023 would then unlock ability to pay landowners and trigger activity by May with the build starting for Sizewell C.

  
  

  Andy Holyland – hydrogen:

• Hydrogen East previously carried out high level assessment of 17 sites across Norfolk. As part of one of CRF projects, Riccardo one project on sustainable action for transport. Supporting Riccardo with mapping tools.

• Hydrogen East expanding work across those 17 sites and extending into Suffolk – high level assessment of as many locations as possible with suitability and feasibility of locations – aware of opportunities around transport, flexgen, and marine.

• Working with Inn2Power to build local supply chain awareness. Pulling together a state of the nation hydrogen report – hope to have this ready for SNS.

• Engaged in CRF projects around community-based action focused on specific sites in Norfolk. Working with Hethel and Lotus to understand opportunities for integrated solutions.

• Multi-end user demand – how can we focus on hydrogen hubs with satellite applications.

• Net Zero hydrogen fund – still very focused on this and understanding anchor use cases that could be used for bids.

• Low carbon hydrogen cluster anchor demand report pulled together which assesses opportunities across multiple sectors.

• Very focused on energy security strategy, situation in Ukraine, national grid gas transmission sale. Keen under hydrogen sector council what the majority stake will mean and how we can capitalise on opportunities in the region e.g., Bacton.

• Alternative fuels strategy – released locally and nationally. Lots of focus on EV charging. Need to ensure we focus on alternative fuels to add value.

• Speaking with developers – looking at site options. Need to be submitting applications and permits this year. Not as widely known as it should be.

  
  

  Bill Cattanach – North Sea Transition Authority:

• Changed name from Oil and Gas Authority to reflect widening out of remit. Regulator for carbon capture and storage. Offshore platform electrification.

• Two key priorities: Reducing / eliminating flaring and venting; and Replacing diesel power offshore to green power. Will be an innovative licensing round focused on this.

• 6 April event with EEEGR focused on energy transition with BP, ENI, East Irish Sea, Neptune, Perenco, etc.

• North Sea Transition Authority championing Bacton as an energy hub with blue and green hydrogen.

• Challenged by Government to get new oil and gas projects up and running as soon as possible. Thought they would be approving 8 projects in 2022 but have been asked to double that. Gas security supply will become more critical if the situation in Ukraine lasts any longer. Our supply from Norway may be diverted towards the continent.

  
  

  Q&A:

• Stuart Rimmer asked around nuclear opportunities outside Sizewell C:

  • Tom McGarry responded that the immediate opportunity is a year out with Sizewell C.

  • Gov’t has given Rolls Royce funding for the development and roll out of SMRs.

  • Northwest, Southwest & East Anglia are the key players in new nuclear.

  • We will have three operating water pressurised reactors – the continuous cycle for outage of those reactors should be the basis for an international nuclear services sector.

  • Confident they can generate nuclear power from Sizewell B until at least 2055.

• Ian Pease asked whether more updates could be provided to environmental teams in county councils. Andy mentioned that they are working with local authority teams in the projects they are currently involved in.

Regional Communications Structure

Julian Munson:

• Good progress has been made across the formation of sector councils as outlined by Andrew Harston for the offshore wind cluster, and emerging sector councils for hydrogen, nuclear and marine science, which will be wider than the energy sector.

• Suggested that there should be one more full meeting of the AEIC, before the new structure, as taking longer to work to roll out than initially expected.

• We are working to drive more opportunities around cross-sector innovation, bringing together different sectors, and encouraging greater collaboration across our assets.

  
  

  Q&A

• Mark Goodall called for an in-person meeting for the next meeting.

• Stuart Rimmer – how do the new proposals around county deals and local skills improvement plans affect our work to date. Feels like we are pitting Norfolk and Suffolk against each other again, rather than working together, and some of this feels like we are unpicking great work done to date.

• Julian Munson – too early to tell what impact this may have. LEP will continue to work closely with LA partners but important not to lose sight of the business perspective.

• Paul Warmington – county deals provide just as much opportunity as it does challenge. Local authorities trying to understand what works best at a two county / regional approach and what works best in one county.

ORE Catapult update – Simon Cheeseman

• The F4OR programme has been running for quite some time. In a comfortable, slicker way of delivering this programme now.

• Impact report is now available for 2021 – demand is increasing by 250%; 74 companies supported through F4OR nationally; 23% is the average growth in turnover; and 13% average job growth.

• 11 companies were in the 1st tranche in the New Anglia area (15 in total). Those companies are showing good growth in terms of their uplift and capability, with some already winning contracts in offshore wind.

• Launch Academy is driven by industry sponsors and is the catapult’s flagship technology accelerator programme. Driven by challenges or themes from industry sponsors. Shortlisted finalists attend a pitch event. Investment of £160k to deliver cohort of 10 companies. Confirmed programme for the Northeast. In the planning stage for the East of England. Will be in touch with Julian to follow-up and hope we can identify a range of companies that will be suitable for this and follow-on programmes.

• Catapult in the region 2021/22:

  • Supporting companies accessing national schemes such as Innovate UK calls and the offshore wind growth partnership.

  • Successfully achieved a number of academic projects and placements.

  • Supply chain support includes F4OR, wind expert support toolkit, and now the launch academy.

• Catapult remains strongly committed to the region. Started recruitment action for new Innovation Manager (based at OrbisEnergy) with three interviews set for 22 April.

• Stand at SNS2022, so looking forward to seeing people in person.

• Want to deliver Launch Academy in the region; deliver a follow-on F4OR programme; and would like to see an SME Innovation Support project in the region.

Inward Investment / Generate Update

Ian Pease:

• Created a cohesive messaging matrix which pulled together the key facts around the opportunities across the energy sector. This ensured that everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet.

• A Generate branded Energy Prospectus was developed which is used at national and international events.

• Mini prospectus’ have been created for particular projects – Lowestoft Power Park and Great Yarmouth Offshore Wind Campus.

• Enhanced social media profile and produced video content around the region’s capability, capacity, etc.

• Global offshore wind 2021 was the first return to action – with a collaborative approach with all developers speaking, ports, EEEGR, and local authorities.

• Embedding the Generate brand in sectoral news to raise the profile.

• Sponsored the event at UK Wind Week, and also took over both the EDP and EADT with focus on innovation, skills, and capabilities during the wind week takeover.

• US offshore wind export and investment event with MoU signing for Virginia Beach and New Anglia LEP across key sectors. More activity to follow on from this – in April with event in New Jersey and tour of Virginia Beach area.

  
  

  Sara Rushworth:

• Busy events calendar for this year – regionally, nationally, and internationally.

• Working with PR company to get national media coverage. Influencing and communications with Government departments.

• Promoting new assets in the region.

• Physical events include – Wind Europe event in Bilbao in April (25 active investment targets); SNS 2022 Gold sponsor in May; Global Offshore Wind event in June; sponsor of EEEGR House of Commons event in September; attending Wind Energy Hamburg in September and Offshore Energy in Amsterdam in November. Scoping nuclear and hydrogen events.

• Looking to support on a potential regional visit from the office for investment in Q2 2022 with Norfolk & Suffolk Unlimited.

Water Resources East

Nancy Smith (will share slides):

• Emerging water plan for Eastern England to 2050 and beyond. Emerging plan came out for consultation and have gone through responses received.

• The draft plan will come out in August.

• A lot of unique characteristics in the East of England.

• Demand management options: desalination options showed in yellow nodes on the map; and factored in Sizewell C power plant.

• From the energy sector, received the following responses:

  • Further conversations needed on innovative desalination technologies.

  • More clarity needed on how and where WRE’s portfolio of options were derived from.

  • Information needed on environmental flow indicators.

• Happy for slides and link to website to be shared alongside minutes. Emerging plan can be found here.

  
  

  Nicola Smith (SSE – here with Energy UK hat on):

• Chair the jet working group across seven operators.

• Lot of feeling that water usage is going down in the sector. But different ways of achieving net zero (nuclear and hydrogen) require greater water usage. Broken down needs across the regions.

• Going forward, trying to avoid unintended consequences that could conflict with net zero ambitions.

• AOB:

• SNS in between now and next meeting.