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RWE and marine nature-inclusive design specialist ARC Marine have launched a pilot project to install ARC Marine’s reef cubes at the Rampion offshore wind farm in the UK. The reef cubes are designed to both protect the wind turbine foundations and enhance marine biodiversity, according to the two companies.
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The companies last year installed 180 reef cubes for testing at RWE’s 48 MW Kårehamn offshore wind farm in Sweden.
According to RWE, the project on Rampion, named Reef Enhancement for Scour Protection (RESP) and co-funded by Innovate UK, is the world’s first full-scale pilot using eco-engineered reef cubes as scour protection and will see 75,000 reef cubes being deployed on the seabed.
The RESP project has achieved several key milestones over the past 18 months, the partners said on 8 July, including securing a marine licence for the full-scale deployment of the reef cubes at Rampion and have now also placed all contracts for deployment.
The team has completed hydrodynamic stability testing of the reef cube scour pad at HR Wallingford’s advanced physical modelling facilities and undertaken ecological baseline surveys.
In addition, a scalable manufacturing process has been developed using locally sourced, low-carbon, and recycled materials.
The reef cubes, designed and manufactured by ARC Marine as a mix of 15-centimetre and 35-centimetre cubes, are engineered with rough surfaces and built-in shelter spaces that promote the settlement and protection of local marine species, such as European seabass, common starfish and brown crab, according to the project partners.
“The data and insights gathered from the RESP pilot will help to assess the potential benefits of using Nature Inclusive Design (NID) to increase biodiversity within future offshore developments while addressing a critical engineering issue. Deriving multiple benefits in this way delivers increased value and could lead to setting new practices for biodiversity integration across the renewables industry”, RWE said in a press release on 8 July.
The 400 MW Rampion offshore wind farm comprises 116 Vestas 3.45 MW wind turbines installed at a site spanning 70 square kilometres, located between 13 and 20 kilometres off the Sussex coast in the English Channel.
The offshore wind farm was officially commissioned in November 2018.
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about 1 year ago
RWE and marine nature-inclusive design specialist ARC Marine have launched a pilot project to install ARC Marine’s reef cubes at the Rampion offshore wind farm in the UK. The reef cubes are designed to both protect the wind turbine foundations and enhance marine biodiversity, according to the two co
