TY - RPRT
TI - Integrating Bird and Marine Mammal Monitoring into Offshore Wind Energy Development Infrastructure and Operations 
AU - Courbis, S
AU - Etter, H
AU - Pacini, A
AU - Campoblanco, F
AU - Willaims, K
AU - Stepanuk, J
AB - The project, “Technology Solutions to Mitigate Use Conflicts: Technology Needs for Scientifically Robust Wildlife Monitoring and Adaptive Management,” is identifying research and development needs for wildlife monitoring technologies for birds and marine mammals at offshore wind (OSW) farms. This includes a specific focus on developing technologies to 1) achieve statistically robust studies that can inform understanding of the effects of OSW energy development on birds and marine mammals, as well as informing mitigation and adaptive management of observed effects; and 2) become integrated into OSW infrastructure and operations.  Two virtual workshops were held in February and March of 2023 to discuss the limitations and opportunities for deploying and integrating wildlife monitoring technologies into OSW structures and platforms, as well as integrating the deployment and maintenance of these technologies into standard OSW operational procedures. Thirty-five subject matter experts, including research scientists, resource managers, turbine engineers, technology developers, and OSW operations and maintenance specialists, participated in this discussion.  Workshop participants discussed a range of barriers to integration of bird and marine mammal monitoring technologies into OSW activities including human safety concerns, limited physical access and space for desired technology deployment locations on offshore infrastructure, complications relating to durable attachment of monitoring technologies to OSW infrastructure, and issues associated with providing power and other resources for monitoring technologies. Discussion also included data security concerns associated with incorporating wildlife monitoring technologies into OSW data networks, and challenges caused by the timing of different planning activities during the OSW development process, which can make it difficult to integrate wildlife monitoring plans into the designs of OSW farms. Workshop participants identified a variety of research and development opportunities that could help to address key deployment and operational limitations and better integrate wildlife monitoring systems into OSW infrastructure and operations. These included opportunities to deploy technologies on a range of different platforms, improve remote data access, standardize the external resources needed by wildlife monitoring technologies (e.g., power, data transfer, physical space, etc.), and adjust the design of offshore structures to better support these standardized wildlife monitoring systems. Continued discussions among multidisciplinary teams of OSW engineers, technology developers, wildlife biologists, regulators, operations and maintenance specialists, and other experts will be needed to ensure that technologies are safely and effectively integrated into OSW development. Further discussion of these opportunities and final project recommendations will be included in the final report of this project. 
DA - 2023/08//
PY - 2023
PB - Advisian (Worley Group)
SN - 418160-42106 
UR - https://nationaloffshorewind.org/projects/technology-development-priorities-for-scientifically-robust-and-operationally-compatible-wildlife-monitoring-and-adaptive-management/
LA - English
KW - Wind Energy
KW - Fixed Offshore Wind
KW - Floating Offshore Wind
KW - Collision
KW - Entanglement
KW - Birds
KW - Marine Mammals
ER -