DV-WIND: De-risking Vietnamese offshore wind farm development by using onsite seabed conditions and optimizing locations using marine spatial planning

Project summary

At present, there is a worldwide demand for clean energy and this demand is even growing in the next decades. A way to create more clean energy is to develop new offshore wind farms (OWFs). This will also help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fulfill a number of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, like 7 (Affordable and clean energy), 13 (Climate action) and 14 (Life below water). Over the last decade, the cost of offshore wind energy has decreased and the technology has strongly evolved and is societal acceptable.

However, the development of offshore wind energy raises new challenges. In this project, we look closer to how the local seabed conditions will influence and be affected by an offshore wind farm. This means that we look to the integration of an offshore wind farm into its natural marine environment. Quite often, cost efficiency of deployment can increase by optimization of the foundation design in the local conditions. Besides, we will look how the offshore wind farms compete with other actors for the marine space.

Analyzing existing data sets of subsurface geology, seabed morphology, seabed habitats and biodiversity will increase our knowledge on seabed conditions and its mutual interactions with OWFs. This integrated marine data set will also be used in a GIS environment with novel spatial planning tools to optimize the use of the marine environment for different sectors, including the energy sector.

This project strives to increase capacity building in Vietnam by for instance educate four PhD students and organize workshops for students, researchers and stakeholders. We will disseminate our findings in joint activities. This all aims at strengthening future research and management capacity and improving societal awareness of the importance of sustainable marine planning of offshore wind farms in the Vietnamese La Gan marine environment.

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