Guidance on the Assessment of the Impact of Offshore Wind Farms: Methodology for Assessing the Marine Navigational Safety Risks of Offshore Wind Farms

Abstract

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) have produced this document, with the co-operation of the Department for Transport (DFT), as a Methodology for Assessing the Marine Navigational Safety Risks of Offshore Wind farms.

Its purpose is to be used as a template by developers in preparing their navigation risk assessments, and for Government Departments to help in the assessment of these.

The Methodology is centred on risk controls and the feedback from risk controls into risk assessment. It requires a submission that shows that sufficient risk controls are, or will be, in place for the assessed risk to be judged as broadly acceptable or tolerable with further controls or actions.

The key features of the Methodology are that developers are to:

  1. Produce a submission that is proportionate to the scale of the development and the magnitude of the risks.
  2. Produce a submission based on assessing risk by Formal Safety Assessment (FSA) using numerical modelling and / or other techniques and tools of assessment acceptable to government and capable of producing results that are also acceptable to government.
  3. Estimate the “Base Case” level of risk based on existing densities and types of traffic and the existing marine environment.
  4. Predict the “Future Case” level of risk based on the predicted growth in future densities and types of traffic and reasonably foreseeable future changes in the marine environment.
  5. Produce a “Hazard Log” listing the hazards caused or changed by the introduction of the wind farm, the risk associated with the hazard, the controls put in place and the tolerability of the residual risk.
  6. Define the “ risk controls” that will be put in place and create a Risk Control Log.
  7. Predict the “Base Case with Wind Farm” level of risk based on existing densities and types of traffic, the existing marine environment and with the wind farm in place.
  8. Predict the “Future Case with Wind Farm” based on future traffic densities and types, the future marine environment and with the wind farm in place.
  9. Process this information into a submission including a claim that the risks associated with the wind farm are “Broadly Acceptable” or “Tolerable” on the basis of As Low As Reasonably Practicable” (ALARP) declarations.

and that Government will base their decision on assessing:

  1. That the tools and techniques used in the assessments are acceptable.
  2. That the claim in the submission shows that the wind farm will meet the sought after level of marine navigational safety.
  3. That there is sufficient information with the submission to have confidence in the claim.
  4. That there is sufficient information with the submission to have confidence that appropriate risk controls are, or will be, in place.