CGEN Engineering, an award winning University of Edinburgh spinout, has secured Innovate UK funding to lead RE:MAG Offshore, a 12-month feasibility project exploring the reuse of recovered permanent magnets to reduce offshore wind generator costs, improve maintainability and support circularity.
The project is being delivered in partnership with the University of Warwick, through Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG), with specialist support from the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland (NMIS) and Cairn Risk.
RE:MAG Offshore will investigate how magnets recovered from decommissioned wind turbines, automotive motors and other electrical machines could be inspected, remachined and reused within generator systems, retaining valuable materials and reducing reliance on new rare earth magnets.
A central focus is how generator architecture can make these processes commercially practical. CGEN’s air cored, modular technology is particularly suited to circularity, with individually replaceable components designed to simplify maintenance, disassembly, refurbishment and reuse. The project will compare conventional generators with CGEN’s architecture, assessing opportunities to reduce material costs, offshore interventions and overall lifecycle costs.
Dr Joe Burchell, Co-Founder and Managing Director of CGEN Engineering, said: “Extending the life of offshore wind turbines is increasingly important, but major generator interventions remain costly and complex. At CGEN, we’ve developed our technology around modularity and maintainability, allowing individual components to be accessed and replaced without exchanging the entire machine.
“RE:MAG Offshore gives us the opportunity to investigate how recovered magnets can be integrated into generator systems and establish the manufacturing, safety and commercial evidence needed for industry adoption. Our ambition is to build on this work through a follow-on project demonstrating circularity and magnet reuse within CGEN’s technology.”
Dr Stuart Bradley, Chief Engineer of Energy Technologies, University of Warwick / WMG said: “This timely project will give us tangible results that will help to derisk the application of second-life rare earth magnets in renewable energy, aerospace and automotive electrical machines.”
Kareema Hilton, Machining Applications Theme Lead at the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland, said: “The RE:MAG Offshore project presents an exciting opportunity to explore new manufacturing solutions that support a more sustainable offshore wind industry. At NMIS, we are looking forward to investigating advanced machining techniques for brittle materials, including ultrasonic machining, and working collaboratively with CGEN, WMG and Cairn Risk to develop innovative approaches that can deliver real industrial impact. We are excited to see how the project evolves and the new opportunities it creates.”
Invitation to participate
The project consortium is seeking organisations interested in joining the RE:MAG Offshore Industry Advisory Board. It welcomes engagement from wind farm owners, operators, turbine and generator manufacturers, O&M providers, refurbishment specialists and companies involved in critical material recovery. Advisors will help validate operational requirements, maintenance challenges, commercial opportunities and future demonstration priorities through focused discussions, workshops and review of non-confidential findings.
