Case studies

The results from the baseline study will be tested on case studies through the activities, listed below. The documents which have been produced are described at the end of this page.

  1. Define design criteria for allocating offshore renewable energy parks (wind, tidal, wave) which can be used to develop the case studies.
  2. To develop three scenario's for case studies, to be jointly identified by project partners, including the involvement of relevant stakeholders and taking possible grid connections into consideration. The following locations are proposed in these scenario's:
    • East Anglia and IJmuiden Ver
    • German Bight
    • Dogger Bank
  3. For the scenario's and locations a SEA on MSP will be conducted according to the coherent approach. The three scenario's are: the current plans upto 2023, the existing plans for 2030 and an expansion in GW capacity in 2030.
  4. A separate case study will be carried out in the Belgium - France North Sea area. The baseline study results and the project SEA approach will be presented to stakeholders of the area simultaneously with an overview of data and information related to MSP in the area.
  5. A separate case study will be carried out to specifically analyse the role of cumulative effects assessment under SEA in relation to offshore wind projects in the East Region of Scotland. The study will focus on the ability of such strategic SEAs to detail a regional spatial analysis of key environmental receptors, and how this transcends down and shapes the scoping and development of a group of related EIA projects within the region in question. It will consider the approach within existing SEAs and Project EIAs and how this can be improved to support and deliver future projects in order to realise the 2050 North Sea Energy vision.
  6. During the timeframe of this project, Denmark will be conducting the SEA of its first national MSP. As Denmark as yet does not have experience with conducting SEAs of MSPs, a pre-analysis of conducting a MSP in the Danish context will be carried out. This will make it possible for DMA to contribute value to the project and to have the possibility to integrate the project's findings into the parallel national processes.
  7. Ecology will be one of the most important factors to take into account when large scale offshore wind is planned in the North Sea. In every case study special attention is being given to the identification of indicator species to assess the impact of renewable energy and on the cumulation of effects. A coherent set of indicators and method for cumulation are necessary for cross-border assessments and cooperation and will therefore be developed.
  8. During the preparation of the case studies the possible adjustments that are needed to make the coherent approach work will be listed. For the development of a final coherent SEA approach the methods applied in the case studies will be discussed, reviewed and combined.

RESULTS

The following documents have been produced and used for testing CEAF in the SEANSE German-Dutch case study:

The Common Environmental Assessment Framework (pdf, 1.2 MB).

This document describes the approach and gives guidance on how to use the instrument. CEAF in this stage has been developed for assessing cumulative effects of offshore windfarm developments on selected species. In the document "A prioritised selection of representative species" the choice for species is explained and motivated.

Within the CEAF tool methods and models are used for making the calculations of effects. The selection of the used instruments and methods in explained and motivated in "Inventory and assessment of models and methods".

The results of the tests within SEANSE on the wind farm development scenarios are described in:

Testing the CEASF modelling tool on three SEANSE scenarios: collision mortality and displacement of four seabird species (pdf, 899 kB). and

Testing CEAF in SEANSE case studies - Impact of piling for wind farms on North Sea harbour porpoise population (pdf, 2.3 MB).

CEAF is only considering the effects of windfarm development on selected species. For cumulative effect assessment also effects of other human activities should be taken into account. In the document Assessment of relative impact of anthropogenic pressures on marine species (pdf, 1.7 MB) it is attempted to compare effects of offshore windfarm development with the effects of other human pressures on the selected species.

All these reports can also be found at the downloads page.

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