De-risking New Zealand’s offshore wind energy

The programme brings together expertise in marine ecology, ecosystem modelling, spatial planning, artificial intelligence, environmental economics, engineering and mātauranga Māori to develop new approaches for planning and assessing offshore development. 

Our goal is to provide the science, data and decision-support tools needed to enable efficient offshore development while reducing environmental risks and identifying opportunities for positive outcomes. 

A central feature of the programme is a shift from conventional approaches to environmental assessment. Rather than collecting large amounts of information first and deciding later how it can be used, we will develop objective-driven spatial models early in the programme and use them to identify where additional information is most valuable. These outputs will then guide targeted field surveys and monitoring, allowing data collection to be focused on the knowledge gaps that matter most for decision-making. 

The programme will initially focus on potential offshore wind development in the Taranaki region, with direct relevance to Waikato and wider application across the oceans around Aotearoa. 

The programme has three interconnected objectives: 

1. Accelerate ecosystem assessment 

Develop faster, more efficient and better-targeted approaches for understanding New Zealand’s marine ecosystems. 

We will: 

• integrate existing information on marine species, habitats, oceanography, seabed environments and human activities; 

• identify important gaps in existing ecological knowledge; 

• use spatial modelling to predict where additional information is most needed; 

• undertake targeted field surveys to fill critical gaps; 

• develop and test environmental DNA (eDNA) and targeted digital PCR (ddPCR) approaches for rapid ecosystem assessment; and 

• use spatial optimisation to design more effective monitoring strategies. 

The aim is to improve the quality of ecological information available for offshore development while reducing the time and resources required to collect it. 

2. Balance environmental, economic, social and cultural objectives 

Offshore space is already used by a range of industries and communities, and future development will introduce additional demands on the marine environment. 

We will develop spatial planning scenarios that consider multiple objectives simultaneously, including: 

• offshore wind energy generation; 

• biodiversity and ecosystem protection; 

• fisheries; 

• shipping and other existing marine industries; 

• cultural values and mātauranga Māori; 

• economic costs and benefits; and 

• potential future changes associated with climate change. 

Working with iwi, hapū, communities, industry and government, the programme will investigate acceptable levels of environmental risk and explore how different development, monitoring and mitigation strategies affect different groups and values. 

The resulting spatial planning tools and guidance will support regulators and developers in assessing complex offshore development proposals and identifying options that balance competing objectives. 

3. Predict and mitigate individual and cumulative impacts 

Offshore developments can create multiple environmental pressures during construction, operation and decommissioning. These pressures may affect species and habitats individually, but can also interact with existing activities and other environmental changes. 

We will develop models to assess: 

• where marine species and habitats are exposed to offshore development; 

• the sensitivity and vulnerability of different species and ecosystem components; 

• potential population-level consequences of environmental impacts; 

• cumulative impacts from offshore wind and other marine activities; 

• how populations and habitats may recover following disturbance; and 

• how mitigation measures could reduce impacts. 

The programme will investigate potential mitigation approaches including spatial optimisation of turbine placement, acoustic mitigation, electromagnetic shielding, lighting management and real-time or "SMART" monitoring. 

These approaches will ultimately be incorporated into spatial planning so that mitigation can be considered during the design of offshore developments, rather than only after impacts have been identified.

A key innovation of the programme is the use of artificial intelligence and reinforcement learning to explore complex spatial planning problems. 

The programme will adapt the CAPTAIN (Conservation Area Prioritization Through Artificial INtelligence) framework to the offshore environment. CAPTAIN uses reinforcement learning to explore alternative spatial decisions and identify strategies that perform well against defined objectives. The framework can incorporate multiple types of ecological and human-use information and can represent changes through time, including climate change.

A major component of the programme will be bringing together information that is currently distributed across different datasets, organisations and scientific disciplines. 

This will include information on: 

• marine mammals and seabirds; 

• fish and invertebrates; 

• macroalgae and other marine habitats; 

• seabed geology and geomorphology; 

• oceanographic conditions; 

• sediment and substrate characteristics; 

• existing marine industries and activities; 

• climate and future environmental conditions; and 

• mātauranga Māori and information relating to taonga species. 

Where important information gaps remain, the programme will combine various modelling tools with targeted surveys and new monitoring technologies. 

This integrated evidence base will provide the foundation for assessing potential offshore development scenarios and their consequences.