Abstract
Mounting offshore renewable energy installations often involves extra risk regarding the safety of navigation, especially for areas with high traffic intensity. The decision-makers planning such projects need to anticipate and plan appropriate solutions in order to manage navigation risks. This process is referred to as “environmental impact assessment”. In what way can these threats be reduced using the available Automatic Identification System (AIS) tool? This paper presents a study of the concept for the methodology of an a posteriori vessel traffic description in the form of quantitative and qualitative characteristics created based on a large set of historical AIS data (big data). The research was oriented primarily towards the practical application and verification of the methodology used when assessing the impact of the planned Offshore Wind Farm (OWF) Baltic II on the safety of ships in Polish Marine Areas, and on the effectiveness of navigation, taking into account the existing shipping routes and customary and traffic separation systems. The research results (e.g., a significant distance of the Baltic II from the nearest customary shipping route equal to 3 Nm, a small number of vessels in its area in 2017 amounting to only 930) obtained on the basis of the annual AIS data set allowed for an unambiguous and reliable assessment of the impact of OWFs on shipping, thus confirming the suitability of the methodology for MREI spatial planning.
Highlights
Poland, as a member of the European Union, is obliged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
After the Automatic Identification System (AIS) data had been processed with the use of proprietary software, a quantitative and qualitative analysis was performed for various types of vessels, among which passenger, cargo, special, and fishing vessels were selected, due to their increased traffic within the wind farm
The obtained research results confirm the hypothesis that it is possible to use historical AIS data during the implementation of the spatial planning process aimed at optimizing the location of marine renewable energy installations
Summary
As a member of the European Union, is obliged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. One of the flagship projects aimed at achieving the planned reduction of GHG emissions is using wind farms to replace the energy deficit resulting from the gradually closing coal-fired power plants. By 2030, Renewable Energy Sources are to replace 66.6% of coal. They constitute the main measures for achieving the target imposed by the European Union. Over the last 10 years, the share of wind farms in the generating of electric power in Poland has increased more than 6-fold [1]. The installed capacity has increased more than 5-fold during the period 2010–2020
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