Offshore Renewables: New Government Guidelines

New Government guidelines have been published to assist developers obtain consent for offshore renewable energy installations. The guidelines address maritime navigation safety and offshore emergency response. Demonstrating compliance with the guidelines is now a mandatory requirement for OREI planning applications. Our Planning & Environment and Health & Safety teams outline some key points.

What you need to know

• New Government guidelines have been published for the consenting of offshore renewable energy installations (OREI).
• There are two separate guidance documents. One published by the Department of Transport, supplemented by guidance published by the Irish Coast Guard.
• The guidelines aim to ensure the safety of life at sea and protecting the marine environment during all stages of an OREI lifecycle.
• It is now a mandatory requirement to demonstrate compliance with the guidelines when applying for consent for OREI projects in Irish waters.

The Department of Transport and the Irish Coast Guard have each recently published new guidelines for OREI. The guidelines aim to facilitate proposals for OREI while maintaining high standards of maritime safety and environmental protection during all stages of an OREI lifecycle. They cover issues such as site layout, navigational practice, safety, pollution control, and emergency response issues.

The Department’s and Coast Guard’s guidance documents are titled, respectively:

• ‘Guidance on Safety of Navigation & Emergency Response: Offshore Renewable Energy Installations (OREI)’
• ‘Offshore Renewable Energy Installations (OREI): Guidance and Operational Considerations for SAR and Emergency Response (Standard Operating Procedure 07-2025)’

Why do OREI developers need to know about the guidance?

The Department’s website states that:

“This guidance shall be used to evaluate all navigational risks and emergency response, during the construction, operation, and de-commissioning stages of an OREI development. The guidance shall also be used to assess potential changes to traffic patterns and should be taken into account by OREI developers seeking development consent for offshore wind farm developments to ensure a high standard of maritime safety in Irish waters is maintained”.

There is therefore a mandatory requirement on OREI developers to demonstrate compliance with both the Department’s guidance and the Coast Guard’s guidance when preparing an application for consent.

This formalises the existing practice by some Irish developers to rely on guidance published by the UK Maritime & Coastguard Agency. The new guidance is primarily based on the UK guidance.

The Minister for Transport, the Irish Coast Guard, and the Commissioners of Irish Lights all have a remit in maritime navigational safety. They are ‘prescribed bodies’ under the Planning and Development (Maritime Development) Regulations 2023. This means they can make submissions or observations to An Coimisiún Pleanála concerning planning applications for OREI.

The prescribed bodies may refer to the guidance when making submissions or observations. An Coimisiún Pleanála may attach conditions to a consent requiring compliance with the guidance.

How to use the guidance

Compliance with the guidance should be demonstrated in the environmental impact assessment report (EIAR) for a proposed OREI. As stated in the guidance, it should be used to:

“evaluate all navigational risks, which could be reasonably foreseeable, by which the siting, construction, extension, operation and de-commissioning of an OREI could cause or contribute to an obstruction of, or danger to, the safety of navigation or emergency response. The guidance should also be used to assess potential changes to traffic patterns”.

This should be recorded in the EIAR by way of navigational risk assessments (NRAs) and emergency response co-operation plans (ERCoPs). NRAs should be based on the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO’s) ‘Formal Safety Assessment’. Any substantial changes to the project that impacts on shipping and navigation may require relevant updates to the NRA. This includes post-consent, at construction and operation phases.

Early engagement with the Department of Transport and relevant navigational stakeholders during the scoping stage of a proposed project is key. This is to identify any potential areas of concern that may require close attention.

The guidance is very detailed and covers all stages of an OREI lifecycle. Developers should fully familiarise themselves with the guidance when preparing applications for consent. Some important aspects include NRAs, traffic surveys, and minimum clearance distances.

Navigational risk assessments

The Department’s guidance includes navigational risk assessment methodology (NRA Methodology). This provides guidance to developers on preparing NRAs and ERCoPs. Some of the key issues that should be assessed as part of an NRA include:

• Potential navigational or communications impacts
• Potential hazards to mariners and emergency response services using the site area and its environs
• Consequences of ships, including smaller vessels entering shipping lanes, deviating from normal routes to avoid proposed sites
• Situations which could lead to safety of navigation being compromised
• Issues that could contribute to a maritime casualty or lead to emergency operations at sea or along the coast
• Issues that could contribute to damage to the marine environment

Annex I of the Department’s guidance provides detailed methodology on preparing an NRA. A checklist has been produced for the Marine Safety Office to verify that NRAs comply with the guidance.

Traffic survey

An up-to-date traffic survey of the proposed development area should be undertaken within the 12 months before the submission of an NRA. The survey should:

• Include all the vessel and craft types found in the area
• Total at least 28 days duration
• Take account of seasonal variations and peak times in traffic patterns and fishing operations
• Provide an appropriate representation of the base line marine traffic
• Demonstrate that all localised conditions and existing and projected traffic patterns are considered
• Cumulative and individual effects of the different uses of the proposed site and adjacent areas

Minimum clearance distances

The Department’s guidance provides that:

“The minimum clearance of wind farm boundaries from shipping routes shall ensure a distance of 5 nautical miles (nm) from the [International Maritime Organisation’s] designated Traffic Separation Scheme (TSS) terminations and 2 nm from TSS boundaries. A minimum clearance of 2 nm shall be provided to traffic routes in the approaches to port/harbour entrances. Consideration must be given to expansion of existing ports and where known, the planned development of new ports or facilities”.

Where appropriate, OREI developments must also avoid known areas occupied by recreational craft or established fishing grounds. Developers must consider minimum distances that are appropriate.

Irish Coast Guard Guidance

The Irish Coast Guard provides search, rescue, emergency response, and pollution response services within Irish waters.

During the planning application stage, developers are required to use the Coast Guard’s guidance to inform the layout, design, operations, emergency response planning, mitigations, and safety management systems for proposed OREI projects. Developers should discuss proposed layouts with the Coast Guard at least 12 months before submitting a planning application.

The principal mitigation measures required by the Coast Guard guidance are:

• Linear layouts
• Clear and unique identification markings visible to surface craft and aircraft
• Hover reference marking of wind turbine blades
• Aviation obstacle lighting and aviation search and rescue lighting of turbines in accordance with IAA requirements
• Lighting and marking of OREIs in accordance with the Commissioners of Irish Lights requirements
• Rapid control and shutdown of individual and groups of OREI devices and wind turbines in particular

Developers must also consult the Coast Guard before commencing development. The consultations and agreed actions will be reflected in a search and rescue (SAR) checklist. The content of the SAR checklist will apply throughout the lifecycle of the OREI development. It will be used by the Coast Guard to ensure the agreed actions are implemented.

Linear layouts

The Coast Guard’s guidance provides that developers of OREIs should start with a layout option with at least two consistent lines of orientation. The layout of a wind farm should be as regular as possible. For example, a grid pattern is encouraged.

The layout must also consider any lateral movement of floating devices. This is to facilitate safer navigation of rescue craft or helicopters both within and outside a wind farm. An SAR helicopter should be able to fly from one side of a wind farm to the other.

For larger wind farms more than 10 nautical miles in any direction, a helicopter refuge area should be built into the design within the wind farm area. Any proposals will have to be assessed during discussion with the Coast Guard on layout design. The minimum helicopter refuge distance required will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. It will depend on the context of the development, but distances less than one nautical mile are unlikely to be considered acceptable.

Where a wind farm cannot meet these criteria, the Coast Guard reserves the right to object to a wind farm layout on the basis it may impact its ability to carry out a rescue operation. The guidance also requires that, where two or more wind farms are in close proximity to one another, the developers will need to ensure that layouts are harmonised. They will also need to ensure they are of the same general orientation. They must also co-ordinate the numbering of turbines so that there is no potential for confusion when identifying individual turbines.

Comment

The criteria contained in the new guidelines are intended to address the navigational and emergency response impacts of proposed OREI sites in Irish waters. These potential impacts could influence the decision to grant consent for an OREI. As consent applications are carefully scrutinised, it is important to demonstrate compliance with the guidance in OREI planning applications.

The Department of Transport expects all appropriate aspects of the NRA Methodology to be adequately addressed as part of the consent application. Any elements missing or inadequately addressed may result in delays or the submission of observations on an application.

Before submitting a consent application, developers should engage with all relevant stakeholders to ensure that risks are assessed ‘as low as reasonably practicable’ and that appropriate mitigation measures are agreed in advance.

For more information, please contact a member of our Health & Safety team.

The content of this article is provided for information purposes only and does not constitute legal or other advice.