Stage 2 overview

Stage 2 of ORJIP Offshore Wind was launched in 2019, building on the success of Stage 1 and continuing to strengthen the evidence base to support consenting decisions for offshore wind developments.

The programme has pooled resources from the private sector and public sector bodies to fund 14 research projects across three phases in Stage 2, each guided by a project expert panel (PEP) of key industry stakeholders and technical experts to support project scoping and delivery.
 

Stage 2 partners

Phase 1 projects

• Review of current and planned monitoring of seabird behaviour across operational wind farms (SBMon): Evaluate available and planned data, technologies and approaches used to gather and analyse evidence, with the objective to improve collision risk models, so they provide a holistic picture across species, seasons and geographical locations.  
• Improving quantification of mortality rates associated with displacement within the assessment process (QuMR): Provide more ecologically and geographically informed estimates of displacement-related mortality rates by species.  
• Improving methods for apportioning seabirds seen at sea both in the breeding season and non-breeding season (AppSaS): Create a new tool for apportioning auk-protected species in the non-breeding season and expand on existing methods to apportion black-backed gulls in the breeding season.
• Reducing conservatism in underwater noise assessments (ReCon): Analysis of installation noise recordings across 11 offshore wind farms to determine the significant influencing parameters on impact pile-driving noise.
   

Phase 2 projects

• Data integration of tracking and at-sea survey data (InTAS): An integrated analysis framework to utilise both survey data and telemetry data to consider differences in age distributions of seabirds and better estimate potential impacts of offshore renewable developments.
• Improving the evidence base for coexistence between commercial fishing and offshore renewables – a focus on cabling (CoEx): Review experiences to date of coexistence and colocation between offshore wind farm developments and commercial fisheries, understand examples where fishing activity has been able to continue, and investigate opportunities to increase available evidence to support decision making around fishing activities within or near offshore wind developments.
• Effects of displacement from Offshore Renewable Developments in the non-breeding season (DisNBS): Develop a simulation model that predicts the time/energy budgets of seabirds during the non-breeding season and translates these into projections of adult annual survival and productivity.  
• Range dependent nature of impulsive noise (RaDIN): Investigate how the impulsiveness of sounds created during fixed-bottom offshore wind farm installation and unexploded ordnance clearance changes with distance.
   

Phase 3 projects

• Benthic habitat changes post-construction: a strategic investigation (BenCh): Strengthen the evidence base on how offshore wind farms affect benthic habitats and species post-construction.
• Closing the loop: Feasibility study to determine a feedback approach for post-consent monitoring to reduce consenting risk in future assessments: Identify barriers and propose solutions to feed environmental post-consent data (PCM) back into the consenting process to improve future assessments of offshore wind projects.
• Modelling of kittiwake metapopulation dynamics (MetaKitti): Develop a metapopulation model that includes connectivity, density dependence and floaters, and fit the model statistically and holistically to the combination of different data-types available for kittiwakes.
• Assessing the extent and significance of uncertainty in offshore wind assessments (AssESs): Evaluate uncertainty within ornithological offshore wind impact assessments and subsequently provide recommendations for how priority sources of uncertainty can be reduced, and how precaution should be applied within the assessment process.
• Improving understanding of distributional change for relevant seabird species (ImpUDis): Reduce uncertainty in offshore wind farm impact assessments by improving consistency in methods, enhancing understanding of seabird distributional changes, and supporting more robust, evidence-based decision making.
• Best practice advice for designing impact pile driving profiles to reduce impacts to marine mammals (RaDIN 2): Streamline marine mammal/underwater noise elements of consenting by producing best practice guidance summarising an approach to be considered and taken up by developers and EIA practitioners for permanent hearing threshold shift (PTS) in impact assessments.