Vineyard Wind and Greentown Labs have partnered to launch the Offshore Wind Challenge, a six-month accelerator program supporting innovations in responsible development of offshore wind energy. The Offshore Wind Challenge is focused on advances in marine mammal monitoring, specifically for data collection and real-time transmission or data analysis. The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center supports the Challenge as an Enabling Partner.
February 24, 2021 - Watch the Offshore Wind Challenge Final Showcase below. It was a pleasure working with SICDrone, Night Vision Technologies, and Open Ocean Robotics along with our partners, Greentown Labs and the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center. Read more about the culmination of the Offshore Wind Challenge and its participating companies here.
August 12, 2020 - We are pleased to welcome participants SICDrone, Night Vision Technologies, and Open Ocean Robotics. Learn more about their marine mammal monitoring innovations here >>
July 22, 2020 - Watch the virtual launch event: “Offshore Wind in New England: An Industry Opportunity for the Future.”
The Challenge
Vineyard Wind is committed to building a new US offshore wind energy industry that is both cost effective for electricity customers and environmentally responsible. That means protecting the marine environment and its inhabitants, such as the critically endangered North Atlantic Right Whale, during all phases of project development and operations. The challenge is to enhance real-time detection of marine mammals in one of the world’s most challenging, remote environments: the ocean.
Advancements in transmission and real-time data analysis will increase safety, reduce environmental impacts, increase protections to sensitive habitats, and create work stream efficiencies. If acceptable to regulators and industry, these innovations have the potential to support the permitting and regulatory compliance of offshore wind projects.
The Global Impact
Offshore wind is a large-scale source of renewable energy and a key component to drastically reduce carbon emissions. Gigawatts of offshore wind energy will be built over the next decade, representing billions of dollars in investment. Vineyard Wind is at the forefront as it builds the nation’s first large-scale offshore wind project, an 800 megawatt project that will eliminate 1.68 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually - the equivalent of taking 325,000 cars off the road.
The Participants
The following three companies have been selected to participate in the Offshore Wind Challenge and apply their technologies to near, real-time marine mammal detection:
SICdrone, based in Massachusetts, builds offshore-capable aerial drone systems that can fly in harsh weather conditions, eliminating weather delays for critical inspection and monitoring at sea.
Night Vision Technology Solutions, based in Rhode Island, is a high-technology provider of thermal and visible camera systems designed for offshore wind, search and rescue, threat detection, and situational awareness.
Open Ocean Robotics, based in British Columbia, makes it cheaper, easier, and safer to understand our oceans using solar-powered, self-driving boats that travel oceans for months at a time while collecting ocean data.
+ PROGRAM SCOPE
All aspects of data logging, transmission, and processing related to marine mammal detection are crucial for responsible offshore wind development. From project siting to long-term maintenance, responsible offshore wind development and operation requires access to the best available science and data collected from field efforts during site assessment and construction, and operations and maintenance to achieve minimal impacts to North Atlantic Right Whales and other protected species.
Examples of critically important data include:
- Passive acoustic monitoring data
- Aerial digital photography
+ AREAS OF INTEREST
Offshore Data Collection and Transmission
To meet marine mammal monitoring and mitigation requirements for offshore wind development activities, observers must be stationed aboard active vessels to visually and acoustically monitor for the presence of protected marine species. The need for observers can be partially attributed to challenges with remote data collection and transmission in the offshore environment including geography, weather, sensitive habitats, and conflicting stakeholder interests. On-board observers can analyze the monitoring data in real-time to inform timely mitigation measures for the protection for marine mammals. Currently, autonomous marine mammal monitoring is either archival or near real-time. Limitations with the size and type of data that can be transmitted wirelessly, lengthy end-to-end delays, as well as bandwidth and network availability are a few major challenges needed to be addressed. As such, innovative technologies are needed to improve marine mammal monitoring data collection and/or reliable, wireless transmission in real-time. This may include advancements to:
| - Drones | - Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) | |
|---|---|---|
| - Fuel cell powered buoys | - Unmanned surface vessels (USVs) | |
| - Remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) | - Sensor technologies | |
| - Satellite data transmission | - Thermal imaging | |
| - Infrared imaging | ||
Offshore Data Analysis
The application of artificial intelligence (AI) and computer learning algorithms in ecological data analysis is a relatively new advancement in the offshore wind industry. Currently this technology is being developed and refined to support the processing of marine mammal data. This technology is currently limited by reliability of the algorithms, capability to process data in real-time, and overall acceptance by the scientific and regulatory community. This could include innovations to AI and computer learning algorithms in detecting and localizing the presence of protected species in real-time to support the execution of appropriate mitigation measures for the protection of these species during site assessment, construction, and operations.
These examples are not meant to be exhaustive, but rather to indicate the possibilities available.
+ TIMELINE
A tentative timeline is as follows:
- Applications due: June 15, 2020
- Kickoff Event: July 22, 2020
- Workshop 1: September 9-10, 2020
- Workshop 2: November 4-5, 2020
- Workshop 3: January 13-14, 2021
- Final Showcase: February 24, 2021
For questions about the program or application process, please contact Greentown Labs.
About Greentown Labs
As the largest climatetech startup incubator in North America, Greentown Labs brings together startups, corporates, investors, politicians, and many others with a focus on scaling climate solutions. Driven by the mission of providing ground-breaking startups the resources, knowledge, connections, and equipment they need to thrive, Greentown Labs offers prototyping and wet lab space, shared office space, a machine shop, an electronics lab, software and business resources, a large network of corporate customers and investors, and more. Greentown Labs’ 100,000-square-foot campus in Somerville, MA is home to more than 100 startups and has supported more than 280 startups since the incubator’s founding in 2011. These startups have collectively created more than 6,500 direct jobs and have raised more than $850 million in funding. For more information, please visit www.greentownlabs.com or Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
About Greentown Launch
Greentown Launch, Greentown Labs' flagship corporate partnerships accelerator, enables forward-thinking corporates to mobilize the cleantech ecosystem to advance their sustainability goals, super-charge their external innovation strategies, and forge meaningful partnerships with industry-disrupting startups. The Greentown Launch team works closely with a corporate to craft a customized program, drawing on a proven roadmap rooted in coaching the startups and the corporate toward mutually beneficial partnerships. Greentown Launch has a demonstrated track record: more than 65 percent of startups leave the program with a partnership outcome. Corporates and startups have worked together in countless ways thanks to Launch, including through pilots, licensing agreements, investments, joint development agreements, and more.
About Vineyard Wind
Vineyard Wind LLC is an offshore wind development company seeking to build the first large-scale offshore wind energy project in the US, to be located 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard. Vineyard Wind, based in New Bedford, Massachusetts, is 50 percent owned by funds of Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) and 50 percent by Avangrid Renewables.
ABOUT MassCEC
The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC) is a state economic development agency dedicated to accelerating the growth of the clean energy sector across the Commonwealth to spur job creation, deliver statewide environmental benefits and to secure long-term economic growth for the people of Massachusetts. MassCEC works to increase the adoption of clean energy while driving down costs and delivering financial, environmental, and economic development benefits to energy users and utility customers across the state.