Floating offshore wind developments bring different potential shipping, navigation and aviation risk and impacts when compared to fixed foundation projects.
To support the safe and sustainable growth of floating offshore wind, it is essential that industry guidance, tools and assessment practices are fit for purpose in identifying any potential impacts and ensuring appropriate mitigation measures are in place.
The Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult Floating Offshore Wind Centre of Excellence commissioned a study to review the navigation planning and risk assessment approaches required for Floating Offshore Wind (FOW). The provider was to undertake a detailed review of the available guidance and tools for undertaking assessments, establish where gaps exist for floating specific impacts and propose opportunities to address those gaps.
The contract was awarded to subject matter experts from NASH Maritime (shipping and navigation) and Osprey CSL (aviation).
The review found that whilst there are a great number of potential impacts associated with offshore wind, the majority were assessed to be either consistent with, or have minor differences, between fixed and floating offshore wind and, therefore, existing guidance and tools were fit for purpose.
However, there are some key exceptions where major gaps were identified across both maritime and aviation impact pathways. These were:
- Management of wet storage sites
- Assessment of safety of towage operations
- Changes to site layout
- Project design envelope
- Cumulative impacts
Additionally, several specific gaps were found with regards to maritime impacts:
- Management of FOW array construction programme
- Management of safety and logistics in ports
- Best practice for certification and marking floating turbines
- Assessment process for deep sea developments
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