Our work with MaREI at UCC on their O&M Expert model provided robust and independent commercial advice and technical challenge as well as fostered industry contacts to boost its commercial development.

The Centre for Marine and Renewable Energy Ireland (MaREI) is a research, development and innovation centre which is coordinated at University College Cork (UCC). As part of an Enterprise Ireland funded commercialisation project the MaREI Centre is developing a time-based probabilistic operations, maintenance and service (OMS) strategy model, known as O&M Expert.

MaREI at UCC commissioned us to evaluate the opportunities for commercialising O&M Expert which MaREI expect to release to the market in 2018.

Using on our experience, primary and secondary research as well as our extensive industry contacts we produced robust and independent assessments of the size of the potential market to 2027 by customer type, region and licence type.

We also provided detail on competitor products, identifying likely main competitors and identifying their strengths and weaknesses.

We engaged with 16 companies (including developers, turbine manufacturers and third party OMS suppliers) to identify potential customers for O&M Expert and the drivers for the procurement of OMS models. Using the business model canvas, we prepared value statements and revenue models for different licence structures. We also provided a market and sales plan with cash-flow analysis.

As a result of the study, BVGA were able to introduce MaREI to 10 potential customers for O&M Expert who requested further information or expressed interest in trialling a pre-release version of the model.

Our recommendations are being used by MaREI as a key part of its process of commercialising O&M Expert.

“BVGA was able to provide robust, independent and ‘real-world’ advice on both the technical challenges and commercial aspects of commercialising our product. This unique combination plus the industry introductions they made for us has significantly accelerated the commercialisation journey for our O&M Expert model”

Michael O’Connor, Project Engineer Offshore Wind Group, MaREI Centre, University College Cork.