Marine Renewable Energy Development in Scotland (MREDS)

MREDS is a major research programme led by ICIT Heriot–Watt University, under which marine renewable energy research opportunities are developed. The prime objective of MREDS is to seek ways of strengthening the marine renewables sector in Scotland and it covers 6 key themes:

1. Export constraints, externalities and opportunities
2. Petroleum and renewables
3. Mitigation, minimisation and management of risk
4. Hydrodynamics, moorings and foundations
5. Environmental and ecological impacts
6. Socio-economic values and responses

The overall goal of work package 5 is to determine the likely environmental impacts from marine energy convertors and propose mitigation measures, and methods of measurement/monitoring, for these.

Collaboration between ICIT/HWU and ERI/UHI will focus on developing an understanding of impacts on, and building research capacity in:

• Coastal physical processes (led by Dr Rob Harris)
• Hydrodynamics and water column processes (led by Dr David Woolfe)
• Pelagic and benthic dynamics (led by Professor Stuart Gibb)
• Ecosystem considerations and consequences (led by Professor Jonathan Side)

Further linked studies include the Total (Foundation and E&P Aberdeen) funded research on passive remote monitoring of diving birds and the Supergen Plus project (jointly with Queens University Belfast) to determine the “what, why and how” for environmental monitoring purposes.