APEM has completed seabird and marine mammal surveys at Vattenfall’s Norfolk Boreas offshore wind project in the UK.
The two-year long survey campaign will be used for an analysis of the potential impact that the 1.8GW project could have on seabirds and marine mammals, according to Vattenfall.
After collecting over 34,000 digital photographs of surveys, APEM said the project team has started using wildlife data from the images to prepare its final environmental assessments.
“We are delighted to have completed the survey programme without missing a single month, despite some challenging weather conditions over the last two years,” said APEM’s Project Manager, Sean Sweeney .
APEM recently agreed with statutory nature conservation bodies on a new method to provide absolute density estimates for marine mammals from aerial digital data. Vattenfall is among the first to use the technique for its recently submitted development consent order (DCO) for Norfolk Vanguard, the 1.8GW sister project of Norfolk Boreas.
“We know how important it is for developers to have data that they can rely on and that is trusted by regulators. Our new method for using our aerial digital data to estimate population densities of marine mammals is a significant advance for the industry and we’re looking forward to continuing to provide high resolution aerial digital surveys for Vattenfall.”
Last year, APEM completed an aerial survey which helped Vattenfall identify the onshore cable corridor for Norfolk Vanguard and Norfolk Boreas.
The two offshore wind farms are expected to be operational in the mid-2020s.