Offshore Renewable Energy Trusted Environmental Data and Information Supply Chains

The Challenge

The emerging offshore renewable energy (ORE) sector in Australia presents exciting opportunities to meet increased energy demand and help drive the transition to renewable energy technologies. Assessing the potential environmental and social impacts presents a challenge due to the complex nature of cumulative impacts, and the need for ongoing environmental monitoring and adaptation. 

The building of the infrastructure required to generate and transport wind energy, and the wind turbines themselves, can impact benthic (seabed) habitats, marine mammals such as whales, and seabirds and migratory birds. There could also be social and economic impacts to fisheries. To fully understand and derive the cumulative impacts of multiple offshore wind farms, a quantitative assessment of environmental baselines, current state and pressures is required. Broad data required for this assessment include:

• Pressures: sea surface temperature, fishing, seabed disturbance, pollution, noise, natural disasters, shipping, mining.
• Environmental baselines and current state: species abundance and distribution, habitat condition and extent, water quality.
• Impact: ecosystem services, fishing catch, economic assessments (degradation costs, economic benefit).

These data are collected by a wide range of stakeholders from research, government agencies and the offshore renewable energy industry sector.

The Response

Core to meeting this challenge will be access to reliable, fit-for-purpose and trustworthy data and science to drive assessment and decision-making processes. A collaborative, broad-based approach to designing and building data sharing, analytics and governance infrastructure will achieve the highest levels of efficient and robust analytical and evidence-based decision support at the lowest possible cost across government, industry and research.

Firstly, trusted and secure data sharing capabilities are required to enable shared environmental analytics between industry, government and research stakeholders for a holistic understanding of the marine environment. To enable data from different sources to be used in shared analytics, standardised collection protocols and data standards are needed. Finally, a robust governance structure around shared data and analytics is essential to build trusted cross-sector partnerships. 

The ARDC will invest $1 million to establish data,  analytics and governance infrastructure to support evidence-based environmental impact assessment for the Gippsland ORE declared area. This initial case study area will lay the foundation for the ultimate goal of scaling the technical and governance infrastructure nationally for all ORE areas.

This will require collaboration and governance from all research, government and industry sectors involved in offshore renewable energy.

This project is part of the ARDC Planet Research Data Commons’ Trusted Environmental Data and Information Supply Chains focus area.

Who Will Benefit

The assessment of cumulative impacts of offshore renewable energy (ORE) infrastructure is a critical and urgent need for the Australian Government regulators (DCCEEW and NOPSEMA), as well as the industry proponents of the infrastructures, as the first feasibility licences have recently been issued. 

Understanding the impacts of ORE on marine ecosystems is a key focus for the NESP Marine and Coastal Hub and other marine researchers. Accurate assessment of the impacts of ORE infrastructure on dynamic marine ecosystems requires multidisciplinary research, across marine ecology and oceanography.

The use case involves research, government, and NCRIS partners, with industry stakeholders from the offshore renewable energy sector.

Research

Marine researchers will gain improved access to new and existing data that will enhance opportunities to further understand marine ecosystems, environmental impacts and the outcomes of environmental protection and management solutions. The ability to access and use a wider range of high quality regional data will deliver more applicable insights into local environmental condition, processes and change. It will also contribute to building a more complete understanding of national and international marine systems.

Government

More efficient access to authoritative products and analytic outputs derived from trusted data sources will facilitate faster and more timely environmental impact assessment and decision making for management and policy formation. In addition, trusted data and information supply models will provide a mechanism for improved understanding and assessment of cumulative environmental impacts of national offshore developments.

Industry 

Development and use of trusted data and information supply chain models will accelerate approval timelines and therefore reduce the cost and risk of offshore renewable energy projects. The model can provide the security and trust required by industry while enabling improved information transparency and informed decision making. 

Community

Regional communities, including First Nations communities, will benefit from improved sharing and access to environmental data and information being used in regional development assessment and decision making.

Program Design and Consultation

The ARDC is working with national leaders in marine research, government and industry sectors to co-design the project, ensuring the needs of regulators, researchers and industry are met.

This includes the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) at the University of Tasmania, National Environmental Science Program (NESP) Marine and Coastal Hub, the Western Australian Marine Science Institution (WAMSI), the Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) and its data facility, the Australian Ocean Data Network (AODN). 

The NESP Marine and Coastal Hub has a number of current projects regarding the impacts and risks of installing new offshore wind infrastructure in Australian waters, including the CSIRO-led 4.7 Development of regional modelling and risk assessments to inform offshore renewable decision-making. It aims to develop a shared understanding between the NESP Marine and Coastal Hub and key stakeholders within the DCCEEW and other relevant agencies such as the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA), of the approaches, methods and data required to conduct risk assessment for resident, static and migratory species that could be impacted by the development of offshore renewable energy in Australia. The project will use the recently declared Gippsland ORE region as a case study, together with the 12 ORE impact pathways identified by DCCEEW.

We are following the co-design process described in the Planet Research Data Commons Co-Design Framework. The ARDC has completed the Problem Identification phase over several years of extensive consultation and information-gathering activities. We are now in the Project Shaping phase where we are holding workshops and discussions with interested parties. 

These ARDC workshops follow on from 2 workshops facilitated by NESP Marine and Coastal Hub that assembled the environmental knowledge base for threatened and migratory species relating to wind energy development in October 2023 and January 2024. The ARDC and partners ran a workshop in Hobart in July 2024 with 42 research leaders and data infrastructure managers to identify required activities for establishing a trusted data and information supply chain for assessing cumulative impact in offshore renewable energy in the Gippsland declaration area.

Further workshops and discussions are planned for Q3 2024. If you would like to be involved, please register your interest using the form below.

Target Outcomes

A trusted environmental data and information supply chain will enable a partnership between government, research and industry stakeholders that provides timely and reliable data and information products enabling cumulative impact assessments of offshore renewable energy infrastructure. It will provide a comprehensive regional view of data collection efforts and the availability of trusted data, models and information products, enabling more efficient and effective research into regional ecosystem processes and trends. In turn, it will accelerate research translation into effective management and decision making.

Key Resources

• Learn more about the Trusted Environmental Data and Information Supply Chains focus area
• View the Trusted Environmental Data and Information Supply Chains program guidelines for potential partners.
• Read the Building a Trusted Environmental Data and Information Supply Chain: Forum and Workshop Report
• Learn more about the Planet Research Data Commons
• Read the program description for the establishment phase of the Planet Research Data Commons.