Special Sessions
Special session:
NATURE INCLUSIVE UPSCALING OF OFFSHORE WIND IN THE DUTCH NORTH SEA
1. ‘How to manage ecological impact with rapid upscaling of North Sea Wind energy’
by Florentine van der Wind (Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy), Ingeborg van Splunder (Dutch Governmental Offshore Wind Ecological Programme - WOZEP), Niels van Houten, (Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality)
With ambitious plans to scale up offshore wind in the Dutch North Sea, challenges arise with increased and cumulative ecosystem effects. Some species experience negative impact whilst for other parts of the ecosystem new opportunities for restoration or enhancement occur. The Dutch government stimulates offshore wind developers to find solutions for mitigation of negative effects and maximize positive ecosystem effects, by a novel ecology-based tender procedure for new offshore wind sites. In December 2022 the first ecology-tender was completed.
2. ‘How to build an ecologically friendly wind farm?’
by representatives of the Ecowende Windfarm (Marin van Regteren, ENECO, Hermione van Zutphen, Shell & Jeroen Kwakkel, Waardenburg Ecology).
In December 2022, the Dutch government awarded the permit to develop Hollandse Kust West (HKW) site VI to Ecowende. Ecowende will build the first offshore wind farm with a focus on ecology – from design, construction and operation to research and knowledge sharing. We do this by minimizing the negative effects on the ecosystem as much as possible while stimulating positive effects. As such, we find ourselves at the start of the mission to develop future wind farms with a net positive impact and we are working together with various ecological experts, organizations and institutions to stimulate a flourishing ecosystem: minimize impact on marine mammals, birds and bats, and promote a vibrant marine life. We will provide insight in our vision for HKW site VI and how this vision is integrated into the design, construction, installation and operations of the wind farm. To make the most positive contribution possible, our approach meets five requirements:
- Holistic, because everything is connected within the North Sea ecosystem;
- Customized, because the effects of our measures will differ per species (group);
- The full project lifecycle, because every phase will have a different impact on the ecology;
- Continuous improvement, through the evaluation of new insights;
- Filling knowledge gaps, so that future wind farms will have more knowledge regarding the ecology of the North Sea and the effectiveness of our measures.
Date: Wednesday, 20 September 2023
Time: 09:00 – 10:30
Special session:
GRAND CHALLENGES IN WIND ENERGY RESEARCH – UPDATES FROM TEM #109
by Amanda Hale (WEST, Inc.), Cris Hein (NREL), and Samantha Rooney (NREL)
In early 2023, the International Energy Agency Wind Technology Collaboration Programme (IEA Wind) convened a Topical Expert Meeting (TEM #109) on the Grand Challenges in the Science of Wind Energy. This meeting brought together approximately 100 experts from around the world to discuss how to design wind turbines and wind plants for wind energy to supply up to 50% of future electricity demand in a carbon-neutral energy system. To do this, experts from the following five research areas – atmosphere, turbine, plant and grid, environment, and social – met in their own groups and in breakout sessions with members of other groups to identify knowledge gaps and opportunities to advance research. Considerable time was spent identifying links between the five traditionally separate scientific areas, identifying cross disciplinary issues, and proposing initiatives to create a more holistic approach to the design and deployment of wind energy facilities. In this presentation we will 1) share information with CWW attendees about the aforementioned meeting; 2) summarize the critical issues for environmental co-design, initiatives, and need for holistic design; and 3) provide multiple perspectives on how we collaborate to advance these efforts. Invited panelists include Kate MacEwan (WEST), Kaj Skov Nielsen (Skov), Trieu Mai (NREL), Bob Rumes (RBINS), and Alvaro Camina Cardenal (IFC).
Date: Wednesday, 20 September 2023
Time: 13:30 – 14:30
Special session:
REDUCING UNCERTAINTY AND ASSESSING BAT POPULATIONS IN DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
by Caleb Gordon (Xenops Environmental), Rosa Palmer, Paul Rabie, Kevin Murray, Theodore Owen (WEST, Inc.), Miguel Núñez-Novas (Natalus Consultoría Ambiental)
In this session, three of the collaborating scientists will present an overview of a recently completed acoustic bat inventory of the Dominican Republic, a project whose primary objective was to gain new insights into the national population sizes of three species of bats that are from collision-susceptible taxa, and that have elevated conservation status, but whose distribution and abundance on Hispaniola were previously virtually unknown, due to a historical lack of acoustic bat surveys on the Island. Caleb Gordon, the project director, will present an overview of the project's background, purpose, and the significance of the results in the context of wind-wildlife science. Rosa Palmer, the project's lead mammalogist, will describe the project's primary field and acoustic analysis methodology, as well as a biological perspective on the study's principal findings. Paul Rabie, the project's lead statistician, will describe the statistical modeling approach used to make inferences about bat population sizes derived from bat acoustic activity data, with an emphasis on future research that is needed in order to realize the full potential of this modeling technique as a tool for understanding the population sizes of bats of interest to wind-wildlife scientists.
Date: Thursday, 21 September 2023
Time: 10:00 – 11:00
Special session:
THE EMERGING COLLISION RISKS TO OLD WORLD FRUIT BATS
by Kate MacEwan (WEST), Emma Bennett (Monash University), Inka Veltheim (Biosis), Jennefer McClean (Tolga Bat Rescue and Research) and Jessica Meade (Western Sydney University)
Fruit bats are predominantly found in tropical and subtropical regions in Africa, Asia, Australia and parts of the Pacific Islands. They occupy a pivotal ecological niche as both pollinators and seed dispersers contributing significantly to the health and stability of the ecosystems they inhabit. Fruit bats face many challenges including habitat loss, hunting, conflict with farmers, heat stress and climate change. With the expansion of wind energy into these regions, collision with turbines is an emerging issue and creates a unique set of challenges for sustainable energy generation and the conservation of these Old World fruit bats.
Date: Thursday, 21 September 2023
Time: 11:30 – 13:00
Abstracts & Sponsoring e-mail: info@cww2023.org
Registration & Accommodation e-mail: jelena.vitanovic@spektar-holidays.hr
Please subscribe to our newsletter to ensure you receive all the timely information (programme and abstract submission availability, news, notifications etc.) about the conference!