Abstract
The global demand for renewable energy continues to increase rapidly and with it the necessity to develop and test new technologies to deliver the power. Offshore renewable energy sources that harness wind, wave or tidal power are of major interest. Technological advances in these directions have not been matched by a clear understanding of the environmental impacts of the new devices, with most existing research concentrated on the impacts of offshore wind farms. Decisions often continue to be made without the support of a clear evidence base. Here we use an underwater tidal turbine, SeaGen, constructed and operated within the Strangford Lough marine protected area in Northern Ireland, as a case study to explore the potential impacts of the turbine as points of concern and argumentation in the decision-making processes. We use information obtained from official documents and one-to-one interviews with the main stakeholders. Our results demonstrate that during the construction and operation of the turbine the perceptions and views of different stakeholders sometimes disagreed but were often surprisingly similar in relation to both likelihood and intensity of the potential impacts of the turbine on marine biodiversity, ecosystem services and human well-being in general. The overall consensus of views was refined and evolved under an adaptive management approach over the 10 years of the discussions and decision-making processes. The results are discussed in relation to cumulative gains in knowledge, future arrays of many underwater turbines and multiple use of oceans within social ecological systems to maintain the conservation of marine biodiversity.
Highlights
The global demand for renewable energy continues to increase rapidly and with it the necessity to develop and test new technologies to deliver renewable/clean power
Technological advances in these directions have not been matched by a clear understanding of the environmental impacts of the new devices, with most existing research concentrated on the impacts of offshore wind farms
The results show considerable variation in stakeholder views on both likelihood and intensity of both negative and positive impacts of the turbine
Summary
The global demand for renewable energy continues to increase rapidly (most recently accelerated by the United Nations 2015 Paris Agreement to combat climate change) and with it the necessity to develop and test new technologies to deliver renewable/clean power. Offshore renewable energy sources that harness wind, wave or tidal power are of major interest. The Ocean Energy status Report of the EC for 2014 cites an estimate of 100 tidal energy companies worldwide, with more than half located within the EU and other strong representation in Canada, Australia, USA and eastern Asia Most of these deployment activities are single devices or small, pre-commercial arrays (Magagna and Uihlein 2015). The technological advances have not been matched by a clear understanding of the environmental impacts of the new machinery, and this remains a major concern and focus of research (Inger et al 2009; Bailey et al 2014). Even for wind farms, our overall knowledge is still very incomplete and the urgent call for more data and new research by Inger et al (2009) remains valid, echoed by Bailey et al (2014)
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