Business

AQUIND Interconnector is a new subsea and underground High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) electric power transmission link between the South Coast of England and Normandy in France. EMODnet Seabed Habitat’s broad-scale predictive habitat map for Europe, enabled AQUIND to conduct their Environmental Impact Assemssment scoping report in order to identify the main habitat types reported in the region that intersects the proposed cable route.

Orsted Power (UK) Ltd are responsible for the development, construction and operation of offshore windfarms across Europe. Hornsea Project Three has been proposed in the North Sea, off the North Norfolk Coast, with the potential to be generating up to 2,400 MW of electricity, the average daily needs of approximately 2 million UK homes.  

Assist in Gravitation and Instrumentation (AGI) srl., was created as a spin-off of the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF). They recently developed the OS‑IS^®(Ocean Seismic – Integrated Solution) technology, which is based on high sensitivity accelerometers to measure the sea-state (waves significant height and period) from inshore land.

The in situ data and wave nowcast products provided by EMODnet Physics and Data ingestion are useful tools for Outdoor Portofino, a company that promotes sport tourism and environmental education, to safely plan activities and promote sustainability for eco-friendly tourism. The company offers a wide package of lessons, tour guides and renting for outdoor activities and promotes marine conservation projects.

Despite fishes’ well documented strong sensitivity to temperature and other physical ocean parameters, modelling these shifts has proven difficult. A key issue is the scarcity of temperature data at depth, where fish usually are. As stated by Captain Lawrence Moffet, F/V Matt & Patt:

SINDBAD+, is a project co-funded by the European Commission (POR FESR 2014-2020), that aims at providing a service that can predict weather conditions and analyse its consequences on the navigation depending on the characteristics of the boat such as length, width and depth. The service targets luxury and leisure boaters. The SINDBAD partners use EMODnet Physics and EMODnet Bathymetry to initiate and validate data forecast models.

The EMODnet Human Activities portal has become a vital tool for C2Wind, a Danish company working in the wind industry. Wind farm and hydrocarbon extraction datasets are the most commonly explored datasets, identifying locations of already existing structures. Additional datasets on occasion are surveyed to provide the full extent of human activities. This crucial information is used in the preliminary phases of projects, determining areas of interest for the development of wind farm projects.

With continued development of portals and a promise to remain an open source of data, EMODnet enables its clients to become more efficient, provide better services and remain competitive in the market.

Biosfera XXI has been using EMODnet data since 2016, mainly for its marine projects, in  particular, the environmental impact assessment project “The electricity interconnection across the Biscay Gulf".

EMODnet is assisting the building of the infrastructure supporting a set of studies, carried out in accordance with the Spanish Environmental Impact Assessment procedure, needed to make the territorial and environmental diagnosis of the effects caused by the project. One example of these studies is represented by the paper published by the consultancy company Biosfera XX Estudios Ambientales where the data made available by EMODnet Bathymetry, Human activities and Seabed Habitats have been used.