Managing Environmental Effects to Facilitate Marine Renewable Energy Development

Conference · Thu Sep 13 04:00:00 EDT 2018

OSTI ID:1583157

Copping, Andrea E. ^[1]; Freeman, Mikaela C. ^[1]; Gorton, Alicia M. ^[1]; Dreyer, Stacia ^[2]

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1. BATTELLE (PACIFIC NW LAB)
2. University of Washington

The marine renewable energy (MRE) industry is in the early stages of commercial development. In addition to the challenges of deploying and maintaining devices under harsh ocean conditions and transporting electricity to shore, concerns around potential environmental effects continue to slow permitting (consenting) processes. Regulators and stakeholders perceive a wide array of potential environmental interactions as risky and highly uncertain, and request that considerable baseline assessments and post-installation monitoring be carried out in order to permit or license a project. The MRE industry is struggling with the high cost of baseline assessments and post-installation monitoring, as well as extended timelines for obtaining permits, leading to uncertainty and risk for financing projects. As a means to mitigate this uncertainty and risk, regulators in the US have been engaged to ensure that they understand the underlying science that drives these challenges and to explore the feasibility of transferring learning and information from early MRE projects and analogous industry interactions to inform potential environmental effects and permitting for new MRE projects. The ability to use data and information from one project or location to another can aid the industry by reducing the high costs of environmental monitoring and accelerating permitting processes for future projects. This paper presents findings of a regulator survey and other engagements with regulators, provides insight into the process of data transferability, suggests a framework for data transferability and collection consistency, and details efforts to engage the research community in furthering this process.

• Research Organization: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-76RL01830
• OSTI ID: 1583157
• Report Number(s): PNNL-SA-135255
• Country of Publication: Taiwan, Province of China
• Language: English

Related Subjects

Marine renewable energy
environmental effects
data transferability
survey methods
risk management