Abstract
It is vital that the floating offshore wind industry develops a sound understanding of the environmental interactions large scale projects will have on the marine environment. Interactions need to be understood, managed and mitigated before the first large scale projects are deployed, to ensure the industry can scale rapidly and support the delivery of a sustainable net zero.
In this context, the Floating Offshore Wind Centre of Excellence (FOW CoE), have launched a “Floating Offshore Wind Environmental Interactions Programme and Roadmap”. The roadmap, delivered in partnership with Xodus, is the outcome of the programme’s first phase and it has identified and assessed FOW-specific environmental interactions. It outlines a portfolio of activities required to ensure these interactions are understood and that well established methods exist for their assessment. Key areas of further work include aviation interaction, colocation and coexistence, cumulative impacts, Electromagnetic Fields (EMF), fisheries access and displacement, Habitats Regulations Assessment (HRA), navigational risk, ornithology, skills gaps and underwater noise.
In addition to this public summary report, a full, confidential report was also report delivered to the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult’s Floating Offshore Wind Centre of Excellence (FOW CoE) partners. The full report documents a complete overview of all interactions identified and reviewed during the course of this project.
The Floating Offshore Wind Environmental Interactions project forms part of the FOW CoE’s Development and Consent workstream, and it is the third project to be delivered within this workstream to date. Publicly available findings from the preceding two projects are available as follows:
- Floating Offshore Wind Development and Consenting Process – Risks and Opportunities
- Floating Offshore Wind and Fishing Interaction Roadmap
Further information on the FOW CoE’s broader project portfolio, including its other workstreams, is available here.