
Soaring higher: Advancing bird ecology with technology
Henrik Skov brings over 30 years of experience in studying marine habitats and the impact of human activities at sea. Throughout his career, he has managed more than 60 marine impact assessments and developed expertise in tools like dynamic habitat modelling, GIS-based decision support systems, sensitivity mapping, bird radar and multi-sensor systems. In this feature, we take a closer look at Henrik’s work and the knowledge he brings to offshore wind projects, particularly in assessing ecological impacts.
Hi Henrik, you’ve been with DHI for more than 20 years. Can you share what your first role was and how your career has evolved since then?
My first role was to coordinate our sales efforts in relation to offshore wind. At that time (2003), offshore wind was just starting up with Denmark being the frontrunner so it was not as daunting a task as it would have been today.
Tell us about a memorable project you have been involved in and what made it significant for you.
It is hard to pick one project, but the Offshore Renewables Joint Industry Programme (ORJIP) project was a special one. It was a joint industry project coordinated by the Carbon Trust (UK) which DHI won together with NIRAS and was undertaken during 2014-2018 with funding from all the big offshore wind farm players (OWF) in the North Sea.
The industry requested an automated solution to bird monitoring in OWFs as the standard monitoring applied commonplace by using human observers was impractical, risky and provided data of limited quality. The latter meant that the regulators had taken a precautionary approach and assumed high levels of collision risks to birds; levels which could not be verified or challenged with manual techniques. The precautionary approach had a significant impact on the wind industry as some projects were stopped due to estimated high numbers of bird collisions.
The ORJIP project successfully challenged the precautionary approach by documenting high avoidance rates and therefore low collision risks for seabirds in the North Sea. This was achieved by developing and applying the MUSE system in Vattenfall’s Thanet OWF. The project was unique because it made it possible to move the MUSE technology from TRL 2 (concept) to TRL 9 (proven in commercial project) in one go. And of course, for DHI it laid the foundation for what would become a fruitful business in the years afterwards.
What motivates you to do what you do?
My main motivation is to improve our knowledge of bird ecology by capitalising on developments in high-tech and advanced modelling. Even though conservation of birds is essential for biodiversity preservation and ecosystem health, and an important factor in policy discussions, most monitoring of birds onshore as well as offshore is still undertaken using outdated methods. Authorities responsible for monitoring the well-being of birds can sometimes be hesitant to push the development of innovations that could offer better data and improve our conservation efforts. On top of that, there is this tendency to attempt to protect birds from interactions with human activities without a deep understanding of the ecological context.
What stands out to you as a particularly notable innovation in the offshore wind industry in recent years? And how do you envision the future of this sector evolving?
I see the development of ocean energy technology into environmental monitoring applications as a promising innovation which may significantly improve monitoring in OWF. These innovations have shown that it is possible to operate self-sufficient, autonomous multi-use platforms using combinations of wave energy converters, solar panels and micro wind turbines. The platforms can be equipped with, for example, a bird radar, lidar for wind measurements, fish sonar, hydrophones for measurements of underwater acoustics and other sensors. This innovation will especially be important to improve monitoring of baseline conditions in support of environmental impact assessments.
Although the ecological impacts of the industry have been scrutinised over the past 15 years, impacts have mainly been dealt with on a project-specific basis without developing methods which enable comprehensive assessments of cumulative impacts of several OWF projects. The build-out of offshore wind will change the environment of many shelf sea areas and I see a growing interest in the application of technologies, like remote sensing, radar and modelling, which will help to shed more light on impacts at a larger scale.
At the same time, awareness of the security situation in OWF development regions is quickly becoming a priority. The successful application of large-scale survey and monitoring technologies will require organisation at higher level than individual projects, and most likely result in the emergence of joint industry organisations and cross-sector management at national levels.
What’s a fun fact about you that people would be surprised to know?
I do not fancy smartphones, and mainly use them as mobile phones.
Complete this sentence: if I could have any job in the world, I would want to be …
... in a job like this, but with more research activities undertaken at sea.
'My main motivation is to improve our knowledge of bird ecology by capitalising on developments in high-tech and advanced modelling.'
Henrik Skov
Principal Scientist, Offshore Wind Environment, Denmark