Annex IV Workshop: State of the Science

Annex IV Workshop
Held at European Wave and Tidal Energy Conference (EWTEC)
Nantes, France
September 8, 2015

Summary
A one-day workshop was held in Nantes France at the 11^th EWTEC Conference on September 8, 2015. The objectives of this workshop were to:

• Brief the international marine renewable energy community on the Annex IV State of the Science Report;
• Seek feedback from the community on topics of importance to the Annex IV initiative; and
• Provide methods for formal feedback on the Annex IV State of the Science Report. 

Background
As part of the second phase of Annex IV, PNNL and other researchers are in the process of writing the Annex IV State of the Science Report. The intention of this report is to provide the current state of knowledge and understanding for potential priority environmental interactions and other topics associated with the development of wave and tidal energy projects worldwide. The State of the Science Report builds off the Final Annex IV Report published at the end of the first phase of Annex IV in 2013, and only discusses research and information that has been carried out or acquired from 2013 to present.

Topics covered in the State of the Science Report are as follows:

• Overview of environmental interactions
• Collision risk for marine animals (mammals and fish) around tidal turbines
• Risk to marine animals from underwater sound
• Changes to physical systems (energy removal and changes in flow)
• Risk from electromagnetic fields
• Effects on benthic habitats and reefing
• Marine spatial planning
• Consenting case studies
• Marine energy monitoring and research

Sound quality during the Q&A session was poor in the recording, so the video cuts off after the presentation and a summary of the feedback we recieved from the workshop audience is summarized here.

Speaker Presentation Materials

• Full Presentation
• MC (Luke Hanna, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, US)
• Introduction (Jocelyn Brown-Saracino, Department of Energy, US)
• Background of Annex IV (Andrea Copping, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, US)
• Marine Mammal Collision Risk (Carol Sparling, Sea Mammal Research Unit, UK)
• Collision Risk for Fish (Gayle Zydlewski, University of Maine, US)
• Electromagnetic Fields (Samantha Eaves, Department of Energy, US)
• Marine Spatial Planning (Anne Marie O'Hagan, University College Cork, Ireland)
• Case Studies and Consenting (Teresa Simas, WavEC, Portugal)

A video recording of the webinar has been posted below: