CrossWind offshore wind project uses FaunaGuard as a "first line of defence" to protect marine fauna

07 February 2024

CrossWind, a joint venture between Shell and Eneco, contracted Van Oord in 2020. As the Balance of Plant contractor, Van Oord was responsible for the design, engineering, procurement, construction, and installation of the subsea foundations, inter array cables plus the transportation and installation of wind turbines.

Challenge
Underwater noise produced by the hydraulic impact hammer that is used to install the monopile foundations could have a significant impact on the hearing of marine mammals in the area.

“The harbour porpoise is the most common marine mammal in the north Sea with very sensitive hearing” notes Marin van Regteren, Marine Environmental Specialist at CrossWind.

The area of installation of monopiles housed seals, porpoises, and fish, which needed to be safely removed from the area of work to avoid any physiological harm. For the installation of the monopiles, Van Oord teamed up with DEME.

Solution and results
To safely guide marine fauna from the project zone, Ace Aquatec introduced the FaunaGuard Seal, Porpoise, and Fish modules, which were deployed as first-line protection alongside an HSD net and bubble curtain that were placed around the monopile. FaunaGuard is an acoustic protection device which emits specialised safe acoustics into marine surroundings to temporarily guide marine fauna from the construction area.

The FaunaGuard sytem was activated 30 minutes prior to monopile installation to warn marine fauna that works were commencing and allow them to move away from the construction area. All three modules were described by Romain Rolland, Project Engineer from DEME as “working perfectly” and no halts to the project were reported due to marine mammals in the vicinity.