Abstract
The OES-Environmental 2020 State of the Science Report: Environmental Effects of Marine Renewable Energy Development Around the World builds on and serves as an update and a complement to the 2013 Final Report for Phase 1 of OES-Environmental and the 2016 State of the Science Report. Its content reflects the most current and pertinent published information about interactions of marine renewable energy (MRE) devices and associated infrastructure with the animals and habitats that make up the marine environment. It has been developed and reviewed by over 60 international experts and scientists from around the world as part of an ongoing effort supported by the OES collaboration that operates within the International Technology Cooperation Framework of the International Energy Agency (IEA).
The 2020 State of the Science Report consists of 14 chapters which can be downloaded as a whole or individually. Download Chapter 13: Risk Retirement and Data Transferability for Marine Renewable Energy here.
Risk retirement is a process of facilitating the consenting of small numbers of MRE devices, whereby each potential risk does not need to be fully investigated for every project. Rather, MRE developers can rely on what is known from already-consented projects, from related research studies, or from findings from analogous offshore industries, through a process called data transferability. Risk retirement does not take the place of any existing regulatory processes, nor does it replace the need for all data collection before or after MRE device deployment. Regulators may request additional data collection to verify risk retirement findings and add to the growing knowledge base.
By cautiously applying existing learning, analyses, and monitoring data sets from one country to another, among projects, and across jurisdictional boundaries, regulatory requirements may be satisfied, thereby subsequently reducing costs to the MRE industry over time.
As a means of facilitating the consenting of a small number of MRE devices, a risk retirement pathway has been developed so that the potential risks of specific stressor-receptor interactions can be evaluated to determine the risk to the marine environment. Preliminary evidence for the risk of underwater noise and EMF from small numbers of MRE devices indicate that these stressors could be retired. As larger MRE arrays are developed, these stressors may need to be reassessed.
The Short Science Summary for the chapter is available here.