The Crown Estate has commissioned ABPmer to develop a regional wave and tidal model for the Pentland Firth and Orkney Waters strategic area.
The model aims to develop a refined description of the marine energy resource as well as help to better understand the magnitude and extent of cumulative effects from multiple planned developments.
The outputs from the model will be used by The Crown Estate in their award winning MaRS planning tool and, in due course, the information compiled to drive the model will also be made available to support other industry applications.
Bill Cooper, Project Director said, “We are delighted to be working for The Crown Estate on this strategically important project. The regional scale characterisation of marine energy resources is the logical next step to down-scale from the UK Atlas of Marine Renewable Energy. Our present efforts have also compiled the most up-to-date description of the local seabed using a variety of publically available data sources to ensure best access to future end-users.”
The project is being advanced on a fast-track programme with the main deliverables scheduled for the end of February 2012.
ABPmer is a leading provider of comprehensive coastal process modelling services and routinely applies internationally recognised software tools; Delft3D from Deltares and Mike from DHI. These models help support their contributions to strategic planning, engineering and environmental type projects.
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Offshore WIND staff, January 30, 2012; Image: abpmer