OES examines EIA tools for marine renewables

Ocean Energy Systems (OES) Annex IV project has organized a webinar to discuss three tools that can be employed for addressing environmental impact assessment (EIA) concerns around marine renewable energy deployments.

The webinar, titled ‘Tools and Resources for Environmental Assessments’, will feature three presenters, including Andrea Copping, Senior Scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Aquatera’s Director of Operations, Ian Hutchison who will be joined by Duncan Clarke, Aquatera’s Head of GIS and Data Management.

The first tool to be discussed during the webinar is the Tethys Management Measures tool, developed by the United States and the United Kingdom as part of the Annex IV initiative, that can be used to generate a detailed list of potential management measures for addressing environmental concerns around marine renewable energy (MRE) deployments.

The second tool from the United Kingdom is the Impact Assessment Tool (IMPACT), which allows users to identify the potential key environmental impacts associated with MRE developments and to access guidelines and recommendations for how best to assess, monitor and manage these impacts.

The third tool up for examination, AquaPixel, is being developed in Singapore as a GIS and data management tool.

It is being developed for marine spatial planning to allow project and technology developers, regulators and other interested parties ensure that marine renewable developments are optimized to find suitable sites and devices that match those sites from a technical aspect, whilst ensuring that environmental impacts on conservation, cultural heritage and socio- economic factors are minimized.

The webinar will be held on December 12, 2017.

The Annex IV project is an international collaborative project among member nations of the International Energy Association’s OES.

The goal of Annex IV is to examine the environmental effects of marine energy devices and environmental research studies from around the world and disseminate information to marine energy researchers, regulators, developers, and stakeholders.