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Thursday, November 15, 2012
Issue 2

Marine Renewable Energy Programme Newsletter

Visit of the Scottish Energy Minister to the Marine Laboratory, Aberdeen

by Andrew Sutherland

The Minister for Energy, Enterprise & Tourism, Mr. Fergus Ewing, visited the Marine Laboratory on Thursday 25th October 2012. Mr. Ewing was provided with an overview of two of the applications for consent which Marine Scotland Licensing Operations Team (MS LOT) is currently processing. Mr Ewing was shown photomontages for the proposed European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre (EOWDC) and the Moray Firth Round 3 offshore wind farm. Mr. Ewing queried what, if any, guidance was utilised by applicants when producing the images. Andrew Sutherland, case worker for the EOWDC application, explained that Scottish Natural Heritage have produced guidance for developers to creating appropriate visualisations. Robert Main, Licensing Manager, noted that some local authorities, such as Highland Council, often have their own guidance to follow as well as that of Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) and that the applicants behind the Moray Firth application had to produce two sets of visualisations; one for SNH and another for Highland Council. Roger May, Section Leader for Marine Renewable Licensing, told Mr. Ewing that applicants were often submitting incomplete applications that made the aspirational target of a nine month determination very difficult for MS LOT to meet. Mr. Ewing was keen to prevent such occurrences and expressed a strong desire to work with MS LOT, and applicants, to ensure that applications which are submitted, are of the best quality possible. 

RenewableUK 2012 Conference & Exhibition - Glasgow

by Andronikos Kafas

At the end of October, staff from Marine Scotland (MS) participated in the 3 day RenewableUK Conference and Exhibition in Glasgow. The MS stand, shared with ‘Scotland Development International’, was manned with people from MS Science (MSS), MS Licensing Operations Team (MS-LOT), and MS Planning and Policy. The conference keynote addresses were by the First Minister of Scotland Mr. Alex Salmond and the UK Energy Minister Mr. John Hayes. Mr Salmond, announced a new target of generating the equivalent of 50% of Scotland’s electricity from renewable sources by 2015, on the way to the target of 100% by 2020 (current status 31%). Mr. Hayes, having crumpled up his official speech and spoken off the cuff, highlighted the enormous economic and environmental benefits of renewable energy.

Please click here to read the rest of the article.

Staff changes

by Ian Davies

It is good to be able to welcome further additional staff resource to MREP projects. Recent changes have been the arrival of Jared Wilson as ornithologist and Kate Brookes as marine mammal expert, while Ross Gardiner at Pitlochry will devote more of his time to renewables in the future.

Jared has recently had a management role in SMRU Ltd in St Andrews, while maintaining a leading position in SMRU Ltd ornithology. His marine experience included a period as manager of the Isle of May reserve.

Kate has been working as a post-doc with Paul Thompson (Aberdeen University) on mammal distribution and behaviour. She worked on the very large AU acoustic monitoring experiment in the Moray Firth in association with seismic survey work.

'Through Kate and Jared, I hope that we will strengthen our links with the Aberdeen and St Andrews groups, who have recognised expertise in areas that are key to some of the main problems in renewables science, planning and licensing'.

LOT Projects update

by Andrew Sutherland

MS-LOT has agreed to provide a brief bi-monthly update on some of the current renewable projects to be included in the MREP newsletter. This time, Andrew Sutherland talks about 4 featuring projects including:

- the European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre (Aberdeen),
- the Aquamarine Power Wave Energy Project  (Lewis)
- MeyGen Tidal Project (Inner Sound, Pentland Firth)
- Seagreen Offshore Wind Farm (Firth of Forth Phase 1)

Please click here to read the article

Note that copies of the Environmental Statements, and addendums, can be obtained from MS-LOT upon request.

Marine Biodiversity Offsetting Workshop - London

by Finlay Bennet

On 10th October Finlay Bennet and Matt Gubbins attended a workshop on the potential for marine biodiversity offsets in the UK. The workshop, held in London, was hosted by the Crown Estate and involved approximately 50 delegates from marine industries, government bodies and NGOs. Offsetting was described as a formalisation and quantification of measures that might be more loosely described as compensation. Offsets are measures taken to compensate for significant adverse impacts that are residual (cannot be avoided, minimised, rehabilitated or restored), in order to achieve no net loss or preferably a net gain of biodiversity. Whilst noting a number of issues relating to practicality and feasibility of applying offsetting to real world scenarios in the marine environment, it was agreed the approach justified further consideration.

Marine Environmental Mapping Programme (MAREMAP) Workshop - Edinburgh

by Peter Hayes

Marion Harrald and Peter Hayes presented at a MAREMAP Acoustic Data Interpretation Workshop hosted by the British Geological Society (BGS) in Edinburgh. The workshop was well attended and included SNH, JNCC, CEFAS, CCW and MMO all present. The purpose of the workshop was to compare the different ways of data multibeam data are being interpreted, identify advantages and disadvantages of the approaches used and where appropriate adopt consistent approaches. The workflow used by MSS was comparable to other groups that relied on expert judgement for identifying changes in seabed habitat. Other groups were developing numerical models to predict the habitats however, these were in their early stages. Maps were being generated for different purposes e.g. to assist in site identification, long term monitoring and as part of the regulatory process. Therefore the requirement from the habitat maps was different and this was reflected in the method used to create the maps. Minutes and actions will be written up by the BGS in due course.

Scottish Marine Animal Stranding Scheme - 20 year anniversary

by Finlay Bennet

On 31st October Marine Scotland hosted a celebration of 20 years of the Scottish Marine Animal Stranding Scheme. The event was held at the National Museum of Scotland and featured presentations on the history of the scheme, some of the knowledge we have gained from the scheme and its future direction. One priority is to increase coverage of reporting from all our coastlines, including the north east of Scotland. If you come across a stranded animal please make sure you report it

Marine Scotland Interactive (MSI) Update

by Peter Hayes

Preliminary confirmation has been provided by Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) to allow their Civil Hydrography Programme (CHP) data to be post processed in ArcGIS and subsequently released to anyone for use. The major caveat being that the data cannot be used for navigation purposes. Drew Milne will prepare some examples of the post processed maps and forward these on to MCA for confirmation prior to their release on to MSI. If this is the case then this represents a significant move forwards for the release of great marine datasets particularly since Scottish waters have been so heavily surveyed as part of the ongoing CHP.

EU Atlantic Strategy for the Atlantic Ocean area

by Ian Davies

The EU is gradually developing a Marine Strategy for the Atlantic Ocean area. The Commission issued a Communication last year [COM(2011) 782]. One of the outcomes of this has been a series of Marine Forum meetings in the five countries with Atlantic coasts (Portugal, Spain, France, Ireland and UK) to explore aspects of how economic growth can be encouraged in the Atlantic coast areas. The most recent of these was held in Brest at the end of October, on “Innovation at the service of a low-carbon economy”, as part of the process to produce an Action Plan. Ian Davies gave a broad presentation on activities in Scotland on marine renewables, covering sectoral planning, the roles of Marine Scotland, and the key environmental research needs.

The purpose of the meeting was to develop a series of areas of work to attract money out of EU funds. There were many talks on why Brest is best. The outcomes were:

1) Coordinated marine observations, physics and biology - to serve renewables, Natura, and MSFD
2) Better coordination of the use of test sites like EMEC
3) Possibilities to combine technologies - wind and wave, wave and breakwater, etc Grid
4) European unification of strategic planning for renewables
5) Harmonisation of regulation - legal and economic
6) A forum for SMEs to develop innovative solutions to technical problems.

A new paper modelling the foraging behaviour and energetics of seabirds has been submitted

by Beckie Langton

Beckie Langton, a PhD student at Aberdeen University, jointly supervised by Beth Scott and Ian Davies, has recently completed, and submitted for publication, a large paper describing “An individual-based model incorporating the behaviour and energetics of a breeding central place forager parameterised for the common guillemot (Uria aalge)”.

During the breeding season, seabirds are obligate central place foragers, and this may make them vulnerable to impacts of environmental change because they encounter disturbances repeatedly and have a restricted ability to search for more productive foraging areas. The paper describes an individual based model, developed during Beckie’s studentship, which incorporates two parents and an offspring. The decisions of the adults depend on the state of themselves, their partner and their chick, and the behaviour of the adults and the physiological states of all three are followed over the chick rearing period. The model has been parameterised for the common guillemot (Uria aalge) but it could be modified for other species in the future. The model was used to investigate how chick fledging mass, proportion of time the chick was left unattended by its parents and change in adult mass are impacted by different foraging ranges and prey abundance and calorific content. The maximum foraging range adults can commute to and still provision their chicks enough that they reach appropriate fledging masses without being left unattended for more than 10% of the time increases with prey abundance and prey quality.

The model will be used to explore the possible impact of displacement of seabirds from preferred feeding areas, such as might arise from marine activities including renewable energy developments.

New contract awarded to the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology

by Beckie Langton

Marine Scotland has awarded the contract entitled "Population dynamics of Forth & Tay breeding seabirds: Review of available models and modelling of key breeding populations" to Francis Daunt's team at Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH). The project will review available seabird demographic rates and population models and develop a seabird population modelling approach that can be applied across the Forth and Tay region in respect of the proposed offshore wind developments. Due to be completed by late March 2013, the project will aid Marine Scotland, statutory nature conservation advisors and offshore wind developers in assessing the potential impact of proposed offshore wind farms on protected seabirds.

You can send your contributions at MREPnews@scotland.gsi.gov.uk or to Andronikos Kafas .
Marine Scotland Science, Scottish Government (Marine Laboratory)
P O Box 101, 375 Victoria Road, Aberdeen, AB11 9DB