Dr Joanna Dally
Chief Business Officer, NCC
To maximise the benefits of clean energy, we must first build the infrastructure, which includes the right facilities, skills and engineering capability.
The UK is rightly proud of its offshore wind record. We’ve led the world in deployment, built global expertise in turbine design and set ambitious targets for clean, secure energy. But to turn that leadership into lasting value — in jobs, growth, resilience and UK capability — we need to do more than build wind farms. We need to build the industry behind them.
Setting the stage for the wind energy industry
That’s why NCC is developing the Large Structures Innovation Centre (LSIC) — a new open-access facility that gives UK companies the environment, infrastructure and know-how to design, develop and industrialise the large components that underpin clean energy infrastructure — starting with wind turbine blades.
Located on the Isle of Wight and delivered in partnership with government and industry, LSIC will give businesses of all sizes access to the physical space, advanced tools and specialist engineering expertise needed to develop new products at full scale. That means faster routes to market, lower investor risk and stronger supply chains rooted in the UK.
The opportunity is real. Offshore wind alone could add over £25 billion to the UK economy by 2035 and support 100,000 high-quality jobs.1
The product and technology leadership it supports — from advanced materials automation to digital engineering — has applications across multiple sectors, including maritime and construction
The challenge isn’t demand — it’s making sure we have the right facilities, skills and engineering capability to scale next-generation wind technologies here in the UK. Right now, most turbine towers and blades are still imported. LSIC will help change that.
It fills a long-standing gap between research and manufacture, where companies need to turn promising designs into full-scale, high-value products. Without that step, many invest overseas. With it, the UK becomes a far more competitive place to build and grow clean energy manufacturing.
Benefits that extend beyond wind energy
But LSIC is about more than wind. The product and technology leadership it supports — from advanced materials automation to digital engineering — has applications across multiple sectors, including maritime and construction. That broad relevance makes LSIC an investment in innovative, high-growth industries that support national priorities, including clean energy, energy security, export growth and regional priorities.
It’s also designed for speed and impact. By repurposing a high-quality R&D facility on the Isle of Wight — with Vestas as our launch partner — LSIC can move fast, avoiding long development delays. It will anchor new activity in one of the UK’s strongest composites clusters, drawing on a skilled local workforce and mature regional supply chains to deliver national impact.
For large manufacturers, this means a shared, neutral platform to accelerate innovation and reduce risk. For smaller firms, it removes barriers to entry and unlocks opportunities they couldn’t access alone. For the public, it means more clean energy engineered in the UK — supporting jobs, building skills and keeping economic value in the country.
Above all, LSIC is part of a broader shift toward industrial confidence. It shows that with the right support, the UK can lead not just in clean energy deployment, but in design, manufacturing and delivery. It turns ambition into capability, and strategy into action.
Clean energy is one of the UK’s greatest strengths. But to turn that strength into sovereign industrial capability, we need the infrastructure to match our ambition. LSIC is about making the most of what we already have by ensuring the tools to deliver are here, not somewhere else.
[1] Renewable UK. (2024). 2024 Offshore Wind Industrial Growth Plan: Expanding the Horizon of UK’s Offshore Wind Supply Chain.
