Function
A full suite of environmental surveys of the wind farm location and its surroundings is undertaken to determine the environmental impacts. These surveys establish the baseline for the assessment and allow impact modelling to be undertaken.
What it costs*
About £9 million for a 1 GW wind farm.
Who supplies them
Suppliers include APEM, Applied Genomics, Arup, BMT, Briggs Marine, Carcinus, DORIS, ERM, Fugro, Fred. Olsen, Gardline Marine Services, Global Maritime, Mott MacDonald, Natural Power, Ocean Ecology, Ocean Infinity, RPS, RSK Environment, SLR, Sulmara, Venterra, Wood Thilsted and Xodus.
Key facts
Environmental surveys are one of the first tasks to be undertaken at a potential wind farm site and it can take two years or more before sufficient data is collected in order to apply for consent.
The surveys include bird, fish, marine mammal and habitat surveys as well as marine navigation studies, socio-economic surveys, commercial fishing, archaeology, noise analysis, landscape and visual assessment and aviation impact assessments.
Companies and developers recognise more detailed surveying can reduce costly consenting delays and post construction environmental monitoring requirements.
Some surveys need to establish regional behaviours of wildlife, for example bird feeding and breeding patterns and in these cases data may need to be collected for several years. For highly mobile wildlife populations such as birds or sea mammals, it may be difficult to establish whether the predicted impacts during construction will be enduring.
Surveys look at the distribution, density, diversity and number of different species. Increasingly these surveys are being aided by new technologies such as drones and artificial intelligence species recognition.
A challenge in the assessments is trying to understand the cumulative impacts of several wind farms, particularly when these are the subject of separate EIA and consenting processes.
Some environmental surveys are undertaken by companies that also offer geological or hydrological surveys, in which case the work can be done from the same vessels or aircraft in parallel. There are also opportunities to engage the fishing community to support relevant surveys.
Environmental surveys are typically undertaken by companies from the home market, partly because there is sufficient local resource and partly because some of the wildlife impacts are site specific and require detailed local knowledge and expertise.
Under the Offshore Wind Evidence and Change programme, The Crown Estate along with Natural England, Scottish Government and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds regularly launches projects to protect and enhance marine biodiversity while encouraging offshore wind deployment.