The measure concerns the commitments made by Ailes Marines in response to the French government's call for tenders No. 2011/S 126-208873 to develop a wind power project off the coast of Saint-Brieuc and the administrative authorisations for the offshore wind power project, obtained in December 2017.
Tourism being the second sector of economic activity in the Côtes-d'Armor department, the question of the insertion of the offshore wind farm in the department's tourist offer was raised. Ailes Marines is committed to promoting the attractiveness of the department and the integration of the wind farm project into the tourist offer of the territory.
This accompanying measure concerns the testing of a system to avoid bird collisions with the blades of operating wind turbines. The system consists of a network of cameras, which detect the trajectories of different categories of birds, connected to a sound scaring system, which is activated once a bird enters a risky perimeter around the turbine rotor. Various systems are available on the market and have been operational for a number of years on onshore wind farms. Marine-based versions adapted to offshore sea conditions are currently being developed, however they do not benefit from as much feedback as their onshore counterparts. For this reason, the choice of system has not been fixed in the prefectoral authorization decrees.
The AU-IOTA prescribes that prior to the start of work on the foundations, the project owner must model the dispersion of suspended matter and assess their impact on the fish resource.
The project owner shall submit a report to the management and monitoring committee for its opinion:
This accompanying measure focuses on assessing the impact of noise on various species emblematic of the fisheries resource of interest in the Bay of Saint-Brieuc: scallop, prairie and cuttlefish. Knowledge of the impact of sound on invertebrates and crustaceans at different stages of their development is still very incomplete.
This study in a controlled environment (laboratory), but also natural for the case of the scallop, aims to better understand the effects of noise on these organisms (such as lobster) and to subject certain species to pile driving and drilling sounds of various intensities (to simulate a gradient in distance between the individual and the noise source). This pioneering study brought together a college of international scientists at the forefront of underwater bioacoustics research (CNRS, LEMAR, MNHN, BeBEST and the Polytechnic University of Catalonia) and the contribution of CDPMEM 22.
The objective is to contribute to the knowledge of marine mammals in GNB by contributing to the catalogue currently being compiled by the GECC. This measure therefore includes outings financed by Ailes Marines.
Two species are targeted by this measure: the bottlenose dolphin and the Risso's dolphin.