POWEM: Piloting of Offshore Wind Environmental Mitigation

Status: Active

Start Date: December 2024

Lead Organisation: Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs

This collaborative project will pilot two proposed innovative mitigation measures that could further reduce the impact of offshore wind farms on the marine environment by ensuring birds and marine mammals are protected throughout the acceleration of offshore wind development. If successful, the pilots would lead to reduced environmental impacts for protected bird and marine mammal species and reduced consenting risk. This could also reduce the need for compensation measures. The Piloting of Offshore Wind Environmental Mitigation (POWEM) project will consist of two pilots: 1) turbine blade painting to reduce bird collisions, and 2) the testing of whether an offshore wind piling noise limit is feasible to reduce the impact of construction noise on marine mammals, specifically harbour porpoise and dolphins.