The Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult has launched a GBP 2.7 million (around EUR 3 million) project to map marine mammal behaviour and underwater noise across the Celtic Sea to support the development and consenting of future floating wind projects.
The three-year SubSea Soundscape project is being delivered by ORE Catapult in partnership with Celtic Sea Power and the University of Exeter, with funding from The Crown Estate’s Offshore Wind Evidence and Change (OWEC) programme.
The project, scheduled to run until December 2027, aims to build a large-scale evidence base on marine mammal presence and underwater noise conditions across the Celtic Sea. The data will be used to better understand potential interactions between marine mammals and floating offshore wind infrastructure and to inform planning and consenting decisions.
As part of the project, researchers deployed 21 marine acoustic recorders at locations approximately 20 kilometres apart across the Celtic Sea in October 2025.
The seabed-mounted recorders continuously capture underwater sound across a range of frequencies, providing data on the marine environment and the presence of marine mammals over a wider geographical area and longer period than conventional small-scale surveys.
The project will combine the newly collected recordings with existing acoustic data to create an interactive map of marine mammal behaviour and underwater noise.
ORE Catapult said the approach could help address a gap in environmental evidence for floating offshore wind by studying marine mammals at the geographical scale at which they live and move, rather than relying primarily on smaller surveys.
The resulting data will be made publicly available through the OWEC programme’s Marine Data Exchange to allow offshore wind developers to better understand potential environmental interactions, while regulators and statutory bodies can use the information when assessing suitable areas for development.
“The data collected by this monitoring equipment will enable us to understand more about the distribution of marine mammals in the Celtic Sea and could help inform our spatial mapping approach to future offshore wind leasing”, said Olivia Thomas, Head of Planning and Technical for Marine at the Crown Estate.
The SubSea Soundscape project builds on environmental characterisation work initiated by Celtic Sea Power in 2021, including wind, meteorological, oceanographic and bird data. The company has also developed SealSpy, an acoustic classifier designed to detect seal vocalisations underwater.