Abstract
Research and monitoring around marine renewable energy (MRE) devices has sought to understand effects that will drive permitting/consenting and licensing decisions for large, grid-scale projects. However, many near-term and likely long-term uses of MRE include powering remote coastal and island communities via micro-grids and direct supply, as well as providing power at sea for offshore aquaculture, ocean observation, navigation markers, and other uses. These MRE deployments may operate on a much smaller scale than grid-connected MRE devices for utility scale. There has been little focus on the potential environmental effects of these increasingly more common micro-grid or off-grid uses. The smaller MRE devices required for these applications are likely to have different, and possibly fewer, environmental effects than large-scale MRE projects.
The time is right to start exploring the potential environmental effects that might be expected from smaller scale (i.e., micro-grid and off-grid) wave, tidal, and other MRE devices and projects. Therefore, there is a need to determine what additional or different information and data may be needed to inform and streamline permitting/consenting for these projects. In September 2024, OES-Environmental and Aquatera Ltd hosted a workshop at the 2024 International Conference on Ocean Energy (ICOE) in Melbourne, Australia, to discuss the potential environmental effects of micro-grid/off-grid MRE devices with interested MRE researchers, regulators and advisors, technology and project developers, and consultants.
The workshop included a brief presentation about OES-Environmental, the reasons for focusing on micro-grid/off-grid applications, and the potential environmental effects (or stressor-receptor interactions) that have been given priority to date in research and regulatory contexts. The presentation was followed by an overview of four use cases for breakout group discussions:
1. Wave energy to power a coastal community of the island of Eua, Tonga
2. Tidal energy to provide power to the Kimberley Port Authority in Broome, Australia
3. Wave energy to be co-located with and provide power to an aquaculture farm off the coast of Tasmania, Australia
4. Wave energy to provide power and enable ocean-observing autonomous underwater vehicles recharge at sea, off the coast of New South Wales, Australia.
Following the description of the use cases, three breakout groups were formed around “coastal communities” (combining the discussions around use cases 1 and 2), “offshore aquaculture” (use case 3), and “ocean observation” (use case 4), using the hypothetical scenarios developed for each use case to address the following discussion points:
- What key species/habitats/uses are of most concern around MRE development?
- Which stressor-receptor interactions will be of greatest concern for the use case, and how significant are those concerns?
- Will the smaller-size devices and smaller-scale projects have less effect than grid-scale devices and can regulatory processes address these differences proportionately?
- How should we manage and monitor the potential effects associated with these smaller devices and projects?