SEA of Plans for Wind, Wave and Tidal Power in Scottish Marine Waters: Draft Environmental Report
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Planning Scotland’s Seas SEA of Plans for Wind, Wave and Tidal Power in Scottish Marine Waters Environmental Report Table of Contents Table of Abbreviations ................................................................................. 3 1 Non-Technical Summary .................................................................. 6 1.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 6 1.2 What are the Plan Options and Alternatives and how were they assessed? ................... 6 1.3 What did the Assessments conclude and what were the Recommendations? ................ 9 1.4 What are the Next Steps? ............................................................................................. 12 1.5 Questions for Consultees .............................................................................................. 13 2 Introduction to the Assessment ........................................................14 2.1 Sectoral Marine Planning .............................................................................................. 14 2.2 The Draft Plan for Offshore Wind Energy in Scottish Waters ........................................ 16 2.3 The Draft Plans for Offshore Wave and Tidal Energy in Scottish Territorial Water ............................................................................................................................ 18 2.4 The Relationship with Emerging Plans for Offshore Wave and Tidal Energy................. 19 2.5 This Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) .......................................................... 20 2.6 The Relationship to the Habitats Regulations Appraisal (HRA) ..................................... 20 2.7 The Relationship to the Sustainability Appraisal (SA) .................................................... 21 2.8 Draft Plan Assessment and Reasonable Alternatives ................................................... 21 2.9 Structure of this Environmental Report .......................................................................... 23 2.10 Summary ...................................................................................................................... 24 3 The Approach to the Assessment ....................................................25 3.1 Overview ....................................................................................................................... 25 3.2 Scoping the Assessment............................................................................................... 25 3.3 Approach to the Assessment ........................................................................................ 25 3.4 Meeting the Requirements of the 2005 Act ................................................................... 29 3.5 Difficulties encountered in compiling the Information ..................................................... 31 4 Context and Legislation ...................................................................34 4.1 Background and Scottish Marine Context ..................................................................... 34 4.2 The Plan Context .......................................................................................................... 35 4.3 The Relationship with Environmental Objectives of Related Plans, Programmes and Strategies ............................................................................................................... 36 5 Environmental Baseline ...................................................................39 5.1 Background................................................................................................................... 39 5.2 Baseline Summaries ..................................................................................................... 39 5.3 Likely Future Evolution of the Baseline ......................................................................... 43 6 Environmental Assessment..............................................................49 6.1 Background................................................................................................................... 49 6.2 Assessment of Wind Technologies ............................................................................... 50 6.3 Assessment of Wave Technologies .............................................................................. 55 6.4 Assessment of Tidal Technologies ................................................................................ 60 SEA of the Plans for Offshore Wind, Wave and Tidal Energy in Scottish Territorial Waters 1 6.5 Assessment of Transmission Infrastructure .................................................................. 65 6.6 Assessment of the Draft Plan Options........................................................................... 69 6.7 Cumulative and In-Combination Effects ........................................................................ 90 6.8 Summary of Overarching Plan Effects ........................................................................ 102 7 Recommendations, Mitigation and Monitoring ............................... 107 7.2 Recommendations for Renewables Projects ............................................................... 107 7.3 Regional Recommendations for Draft Plan Options .................................................... 112 7.4 Wider Recommendations ............................................................................................ 116 7.5 Current and Ongoing Research .................................................................................. 118 7.6 Proposed Monitoring ................................................................................................... 120 8 Next Steps ..................................................................................... 129 8.1 Timescale for the Assessment .................................................................................... 129 8.2 Details of the Consultations ........................................................................................ 129 8.3 Questions for Consultees ............................................................................................ 131 9 Appendix A: Relevant Environmental Protection Objectives ......... 132 Tables and Figures Figure 1.1: Draft Plan Options for Wind, Wave and Tidal Energy ............................................................ 7 Table 1.1: Summary of the environmental information collected to inform the assessments ............. 7 Table 1.2: Indicative occupancy scenarios for wind, wave and tidal energy ......................................... 8 Table 1.3: Risk Based Approach Used in this Report ............................................................................... 9 Figure 2.1 Sectoral Marine Planning ......................................................................................................... 15 Figure 2.2 Map showing Scottish Territorial Waters and Scottish Offshore Waters ........................... 16 Figure 2.3 Areas of search identified in ‘Blue Seas, Green Energy’ (2011) .......................................... 17 Figure 2.4: Initial Wave and Tidal Areas of Energy Potential ................................................................. 19 Figure 2.5: Draft Plan Options for Wind Energy ...................................................................................... 21 Figure 2.6: Draft Plan Options for Wave Energy ...................................................................................... 22 Figure 2.7: Draft Plan Options for Tidal Energy ....................................................................................... 22 Table 2.1: Indicative occupancy scenarios for wind, wave and tidal energy ....................................... 23 Table 3.1: Example Assessment Table ..................................................................................................... 27 Table 3.2: Risk Based Approach Used in this Report ............................................................................. 28 Table 3.3: SEA Objectives .......................................................................................................................... 29 Table 3.4: Compliance checklist ................................................................................................................ 29 Figure 4.1: Inshore and offshore limits of Scottish territorial waters ................................................... 34 Table 6.1: Risk Based Summary for Offshore Wind ................................................................................ 70 Table 6.2: Risk Based Summary for Wave ............................................................................................... 77 Table 6.3: Risk Based Summary for Tidal ................................................................................................ 83 Figure 6.1: Draft Plan Options and Potential Developments .................................................................. 91 Table 6.4: Assessment of the Plans against SEA Objectives .............................................................. 103 Table 7.1: Initial Monitoring Framework ................................................................................................. 121 SEA of the Plans for Offshore Wind, Wave and Tidal Energy in Scottish Territorial Waters 2 Table of Abbreviations AC Alternating Current AEWA Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds AIS