Last week saw the inaugural opening ceremony of Borkum Riffgrund 1 offshore wind farm, for which Baker Consultants provided noise and marine mammal monitoring services.
“This is a fantastic achievement for all involved and we are proud of Baker Consultants’ role in this,” Baker Consultants said.
In August 2013, the construction of the wind farm started with the installation of the substation, and DONG Energy had all the turbines installed at its first German offshore wind project already in May 2015.
Back in February 2014, the company’s marine bioacoustics team embarked on a contract with GeoSea to provide noise and marine mammal monitoring services during the construction phase of the Borkum Riffgrund 1 offshore wind farm. In February 2015, electricity from Borkum Riffgrund 1 was generated and fed into the German grid for the first time. Now all the turbines are operational and the wind farm is capable of generating up to 312 megawatts of green electricity.
The construction work for the 78 turbine DONG Energy project was won by GeoSea, who used the Pacific Orca vessel for the piling operations. As the wind farm is situated in German waters, there was a strict regulatory regime in place to control noise pollution in the marine environment. This was where Baker Consultants’ expertise was needed, and the service included both noise monitoring during piling operations and recording of the passage of species, such as harbour porpoise.
The company said it worked closely with the installation company, the piling company and the clients’ consent managers, to ensure that mitigation protocols were followed and to advise on how to optimise the piling strategy whilst minimising the noise emissions to obtain swift release for the installation of all the planned monopiles.
Read Baker Consultants’ Borkum Riffgrund 1 case study here .
Image: Baker Consultants