Marine consultancy and survey company ABPmer is developing a comprehensive database of hard protection used in offshore wind cable burial on behalf of the Marine Management Organisation (MMO). The project aims to support more accurate cumulative effects assessments, improve understanding of hard protection distribution in marine protected areas (MPAs), and provide an evidence base for decisions related to offshore wind licensing in English waters.
With the projected growth of offshore wind farms, which could add over 42GW of capacity in the pre-application stage, the deployment of subsea cabling is also expected to increase significantly. Current estimates project the installation of 5,000 km of array cables and 4,000 km of export cables between 2019 and 2029.
Despite progress, the full distribution of anthropogenic hard substrate on the seabed has not been mapped. ABPmer is working to address this gap by using industry data to build a geospatial database of cable protection and other relevant data layers in the marine environment. The database will map cable protection, as well as remedial works for cable burial failures, alongside environmental data to identify trends and better understand the causes of these failures.
Heidi Roberts, Project Director at ABPmer, commented, “We are delighted to support the MMO and the wider offshore wind industry with the development of the cable protection database. It will aid the consenting process for offshore wind, where information on cable protection is required as part of Development Consent Order (DCO) applications and is used to inform environmental assessment. By delivering this database, we are improving the evidence base, reducing uncertainty and helping ensure the continued responsible and sustainable development of offshore renewable energy.
The completed report and database are expected to be publicly available in the autumn of 2025.
