In 2016 we started the world’s largest ever offshore digital aerial survey for birds, marine mammals, turtles and fish off the East coast of the US, covering an area twice the size of Wales on a quarterly basis.
We also continued to work extensively in the UK with long-standing clients like ScottishPower Renewables, Vattenfall and RWE Innogy, while continuing our surveys in Germany and being contracted to survey a protected site by Natural Resources Wales.
Our record breaking surveys off the New York coast will cover an area of 43,000 km2 and will gather almost four million ultra-high resolution images.
In April we completed surveys over Vattenfall’s Norfolk Vanguard East site, as part of an eight month project to gather data on birds and marine mammals in the area. Vattenfall is using analysis of the survey data as part of its environment impact assessment.
Later in the year Vattenfall extended our contract to also provide ultra-high resolution bird and marine mammal surveys for its Norfolk Vanguard West site. The surveys were among the first to use our new camera system, Shearwater II. The state-of-the-art system is the most advanced ultra-high resolution stills set-up in use for offshore wildlife surveys, gathering very high resolution images even from heights well above 2000 feet.
In June we announced that we would be carrying out post-construction aerial surveys at the world’s second largest offshore wind farm, Gwynt y Môr, off the coast of North Wales. The surveys cover the wind farm area plus a 4 km buffer, as well as a wider area in Colwyn Bay where the wind farm sits. They continue our long-standing relationship with developer RWE Innogy.
Autumn brought the start of bird and marine mammal surveys over the East Anglia ONE North area, off the coast of Norfolk, on behalf of ScottishPower Renewables. At the same time we also continued baseline surveys of the East Anglia TWO area after ScottishPower Renewables extended its contract with us.
Since 2009 APEM has worked extensively on wind farm areas in the East Anglia zone on behalf of both ScottishPower Renewables and Vattenfall, delivering surveys for East Anglia ONE, East Anglia TWO, East Anglia THREE, East Anglia FOUR and the East Anglia Zonal Assessment.
APEM’s director of remote sensing, Dr Stuart Clough, said:
Quality and innovation are the name of the game in aerial surveys for offshore wind farms, delivering ever higher quality data at ever lower costs.
We’re tremendously proud that our long-standing clients trust us with this important work and that new clients continue to join us.
APEM completed surveys over Vattenfall’s Norfolk Vanguard East site, as part of an eight month project to gather data on birds and marine mammals in the area
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ScottishPower Renewables has appointed aerial survey specialists APEM to carry out ultra-high resolution bird and marine mammal surveys
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