ScottishPower Renewables has appointed aerial survey specialists APEM to carry out ultra-high resolution bird and marine mammal surveys of its proposed East Anglia ONE North area.
APEM is also continuing baseline surveys of the East Anglia TWO area after ScottishPower Renewables extended its contract.
All the surveys will employ APEM’s recently developed proprietary camera system, Shearwater II. ScottishPower Renewables will use the results of the surveys for the baseline bird and marine mammal data for its EIAs for the two areas.
Surveys of the East Anglia ONE North area began this month. At the same time APEM is also carrying out further surveys of the East Anglia TWO area, building on surveys carried out last winter.
David Walker, development director of ScottishPower Renewables offshore business said: “APEM are offering cutting edge technology to ensure the data we get from bird surveys is highly accurate, and this is critical when planning an offshore windfarm. As well as the quality of the data, the process of gathering information is very efficient. The offshore wind industry is always seeking to deploy innovative technology solutions to deliver all aspects of a project, and we look forward to working with APEM in the coming months.”
APEM has worked extensively on wind farm areas in the East Anglia zone on behalf of both Scottish Power Renewables and Vattenfall since 2009, delivering surveys for East Anglia ONE, East Anglia THREE and East Anglia FOUR.
Once constructed, the East Anglia TWO and East Anglia ONE North offshore wind farms would lie around 31 km from the port of Lowestoft and offer a maximum generating capacity of 800 MW each.