Abstract
The main aim of the RiCORE project is to ensure the successful development of Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) in the EU Member States by reducing the cost and time taken to consent projects of low environmental risk through the development of a risk based approach to the consenting of projects which standardises the assessment of key components of environmental risk from ORE deployment.
The starting point will be the “Survey, Deploy and Monitor Licensing Policy Guidance” (SDM) that was pioneered by Marine Scotland1 , and the project will look separately at the potential utility of a risk based approach to reduce time and cost when securing consents during both pre- consent surveying and post- deployment monitoring. The SDM policy is a tool to provide regulators and developers with an efficient risk-based approach for taking forward wave and tidal energy proposals, facilitating a phased/staged development approach (avoiding sensitive environments).
This deliverable aims to contribute to the further development of the Survey, Deploy and Monitor (SDM) policy guidance, pioneered by Marine Scotland, acting as a guide for users wishing to apply a risk based approach at a Member State level. For this, a review and further development of the three main pillars on which this approach is based has been undertaken: (i) environmental sensitivity of the site, (ii) the risk profile of the technology and (iii) the scale of the proposed project.
Section 3 reviews the approach undertaken in Scotland for environmental sensitivity assessment with a view to informing consideration of those aspects other Member States may wish to further develop.
Section 4 address the identification of the main impact pathways of MRE developments over the marine environment based on the technology identification undertaken by Deliverable 3.2 (Mascarenhas et al., 2015). 1 http://www.gov.scot/Topics/marine/Licensing/marine/Applications/SDM ricore-project.eu 7
Section 5 refine or improve the parameters used to describe the scale of the project introducing the physical scale of the project (area of occupation and generation capacity) and the duration of the project parameters.
Section 6 develops the methodology for the overall assessment of the risk posed by a project, based on assessments of environmental sensitivity, project scale, and technology risk according to the proposal undertaken in previous sections.