Best Practices for Monitoring Environmental Effects of Marine Energy Devices

Biological/Ecological Effects: Copp ing, A., L. Hanna, and I. Hutchinson (2014)

A Workshop sponsored by Annex IV in conjunction with the 2014 EIMR Conference, Stornoway, UK, April 29, 2014.

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Link: http://tethys.pnnl.gov/sites/default/files/publications/Annex-IV-2014-workshop-report-final.pdf

As the wave and tidal industry plans for initial commercial deployments, significant uncertainties remain about the risks to marine animals and habitats from wave and tidal devices; this uncertainty continues to slow and complicate siting and permitting (consenting) processes. Advancement of the industry can be simplified if the level of uncertainty is reduced, allowing regulators and the marine energy industry to focus monitoring on a small set of interactions for which risk remains uncertain, or where ongoing observation becomes a component of mitigation for high risk levels (with low risk uncertainty).

Under the sponsorship of Annex IV, a 1-day workshop was held in conjunction with the EIMR (Environmental Impacts of Marine Renewables) conference in Stornoway, United Kingdom (UK), on April 29 2014. Support for the workshop was provided by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the EIMR conference, and was organized by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) with assistance from the DOE Wind and Water Power Technologies Office and the Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Center.