UK marine consultancy ABPmer has been commissioned to provide marine physical process assessments to support the consenting of the Ayre and Bowdun offshore wind farms in Scotland, owned by Thistle Wind Partners (TWP), a consortium comprising DEME, Qair, and Aspiravi.
Ayre is a 1 GW floating wind project planned to be built off the coast of Orkney and Bowdun is a 1 GW fixed-bottom offshore wind project off the coast of Aberdeen.
TWP secured seabed leases from Crown Estate Scotland for the two projects in January 2022 and, the following year, awarded the first supplier contracts , including a contract with RPS for consenting support services, Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA), and Habitats Regulation Assessments (HRA), which will be submitted for both projects’ applications in 2025.
ABPmer will, on behalf of RPS, model the wave, hydrodynamic and sediment transport environment of the project areas to understand how these factors could impact the planned wind farms, as well as how the wind farm designs could influence coastal processes, sediment transport pathways, and morphological features on the seabed and at the coast.
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Construction of the two offshore wind farms will start in 2029. Both Ayre and the fixed-bottom project Bowdun are expected to be fully commissioned by 2033.
Heidi Roberts , ABPmer Project Director, said: “ABPmer brings a wealth of experience to the project, having undertaken EIA related studies for over 30 UK offshore wind projects, including Scotland’s Salamander, MarramWind, Beatrice, Moray East and Moray West Wind Farms, as well as post-consent coastal processes and metocean support.”
In 2022, BP and EnBW contracted ABPmer to provide detailed metocean design data for the Morgan and Mona offshore wind projects in the eastern Irish Sea.
Last year, BP and EnBW commissioned ABPmer to also provide detailed seabed mobility information for their two offshore wind farms in the UK.