IWDG Consulting have started fieldwork in North Mayo as part of the AFLOWT project. Commissioned by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) to deliver the marine mammal component of AFLOWT (https://www.nweurope.eu/projects/project-search/aflowt-accelerating-market-uptake-of-floating-offshore-wind-technology/), the IWDG are contracted to:
i) collate all background data on the site
ii) carry out a gap analysis
iii) establish baseline indices for monitoring requirements
iv) prepare the marine mammal chapter for the EIS/AA
v) develop an ongoing environmental programme
IWDG Consulting have developed a partnership with SMRU Consulting in order to bring in their experience and expertise with similar floating offshore wind devices in Scotland. SMRU Consulting will prepare the EIA and AA while IWDG Consulting will review current knowlege and gather baseline data. Fieldwork involves deploying Static Acoustic Monitoring equipment and adding to the photo-id catalogue of bottlenose dolphins that frequent the area. The inner test berth of AMETS is within the newly designated West Connacht Coast SAC which lists bottlenose dolphins as the sole qualifying interest.
The baseline review and gap analysis has already been delivered to SEAI (Quinn and Berrow, 2020) and fieldwork will last 1-2 years. It is hoped to deploy a full-scale floating offshore wind device by 2023 at the AMETS site.
Quinn, M. and Berrow, S. (2020) AFLOWT: Review of Marine Mammal Baseline Data and Gap Analysis from the Atlantic Marine Energy Test site (AMETS). Final Report prepared by IWDG Consulting for the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) for the AFLOWT Project. 35pp.
