The European Commission (EC) has selected a consortium led by us for a project on the environmental impacts of noise, vibrations and electromagnetic emissions from marine renewables.
In Europe and beyond, there are ambitious plans to install marine renewable energy devices (MREDs). The construction and operation of MRED’s will leadto the emission of electromagnetic fields (EMFs), subsea noise and vibrations into the marine environment. Yet their impacts on marine life are only partly understood. This information gap poses challenges to the implementation of MRED’s.
Our consortium will study this problem with a large scale investigation including:
- a review of the environmental impacts of marine renewable energy devices
- in-depth analyses of studies on the environmental impacts of noise, vibrations and electromagnetic (EM) emissions during all stages related to marine renewable energy devices
Furthermore, we’ll perform an analysis of the norms and standards related to noise, vibrations and EM emissions for marine renewable energy systems. Based on these reviews, we’ll undertake relevant on-site measurements and field experiments to validate and build on the results obtained in above studies.
The study shall lead to the preparation of a programme for further R&D with justified priorities and thus will feed directly into the upcoming EC research priorities.
In collaboration with Cranfield University (UK), we’ve assembled a high profile team of nine institutions from six EU member states including:
- Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas), UK
- Totalförsvarets forskningsinstitut (FOI), Sweden
- Scottish Association of Marine Science (SAMS), UK
- Deutsches Wind Energie Institut (DEWI), Germany
- Management Unit of the Mathematical Model of the North Sea (MUMM), Belgium
- Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) - Laboratori d'Aplicacions Bioacústiques, Spain
- Quiet Oceans (QO), France
The study commenced in December 2013 and will continue till June 2015.