OES-Environmental distributes metadata forms (questionnaires) to solicit information from researchers around the world who are exploring the environmental effects of marine renewable energy. This page provides a description and contact information related to the research. Content is updated on an annual basis.


European Scalable Offshore Renewable Energy Source (EU-SCORES)

Status

In Progress

Principle Investigator Contact Information

Name: Francisco Correia da Fonseca
Affiliation: WavEC Offshore Renewables
Phone: (+351) 21 848 26 55
Email: francisco.fonseca@wavec.org

Description

U-SCORES is a highly ambitious EU-funded project aimed at demonstrating and unlocking the large-scale potential of multi-source, offshore renewable energy farms across different European sea basins. This will be achieved through two highly comprehensive and impactful demonstrations: (1) An offshore solar PV system in Belgium co-located with a bottom fixed windfarm and; (2) A wave energy array in Portugal co-located with a floating wind farm. 

Funding Source

H2020 Green Deal

Funding Contact

Please contact the PI for more information.

Location of Research

Portugal and Belgium

Project Aims

The multi-source demonstrations in EU-SCORES will showcase the benefits of a continuous power output harnessing the complementarity between wind, sun and waves as it leads to a more resilient and stable power system, higher capacity factors and a lower total cost per MWh. These aspects will also improve the business case for the production of green hydrogen within these parks. The full-scale demonstrations will prove how the increased power output and capacity installed per km2 will reduce the amount of marine space needed, thereby leaving more space for aquaculture, fisheries, shipping routes and environmentally protected zones.

Study Progress

In Portugal, the project environmental monitoring included the baseline characterisation and operational monitoring of underwater noise and marine mammal communities. During the operational phase marine mammal communities were characterised both in the project area and control areas. For this purpose, visual (boat based and drone) and acoustic surveys (F-PODs) are being performed. In what concerns marine growth/biofouling, surveys are being conducted following the operational and maintenance strategy of the project.

Key Findings

Marine mammals: acoustic and visual surveys data are being analysed covering the pre-operational and operational phase. Data will be published as soon as possible. 

Biofouling: due to the short period of deployment, it was only possible to perform a preliminary assessment that showed that the benthic communities settling on the device are mostly limpets. 

Related Publications

Publications: Two publications regarding the usage of AI algorithms to automatize the identification of marine mammals through drone imagery retrieved on the marine mammals environmental monitoring surveys. See below:

  1. Filipe, L. V., Canelas, J., Vieira, M., Correia da Fonseca, F., Cid, A., Castro, J., & Machado, I. (2026). Advancing marine mammal monitoring: Large-scale UAV delphinidae datasets and robust motion tracking for group size estimation. Machine Learning with Applications, 23, 100808.
  2. Canelas, J., Clementino, L., Cid, A., Castro J., Machado, I., Vieira, S. 2025. Automated cetacean detection in UAV imagery using AI models: a case study on Delphinid species. International Journal of Data Science and Analytics.