A Risk Assessment Framework to Evaluate Effects of Offshore Wind Farms on the California Upwelling Ecosystem
This project will determine potential changes in coastal upwelling due to offshore wind project development.
Integral Consulting Inc.
Recipient
Santa Cruz, CA
Recipient Location
17th
Senate District
29th
Assembly District
$481,977
Amount Spent
Active
Project Status
Project Update
The agreement was approved at the April 2020 business meeting and kicked-off in the summer. The first TAC meeting was held in September. The research team is coordinating closely with the team from EPC-19-011 to use a common set of parameters for offshore wind turbines and wind facility locations and configurations with industry guidance.
The Issue
Wind-driven ocean upwelling along the California coast is responsible for much of the primary productivity that sustains one of the richest marine ecosystems on the planet. The development of large-scale offshore wind energy projects has the potential to reduce the wind stress at the sea surface, which could have local and/or regional implications on wind-driven upwelling, nutrient delivery, and ecosystem dynamics. It is therefore necessary to investigate the effects of large-scale wind farms on coastal upwelling in the context of historical climatology as well as climate change predictions.
Project Innovation
The project team is conducting a numerical modeling study to determine potential changes in coastal upwelling due to offshore wind project development over a variety of environmental conditions. A number of baseline cases (no wind farms) will be modeled for a variety of climatologies and compared with modeled cases that include simulated offshore wind farms with varying characteristics in identified areas of interest. The methodology will combine coupled numerical atmospheric-ocean models. Results from the coupled models will provide an enhanced scientific understanding of the effects of wind energy reduction on nearshore ocean circulation.
Project Goals
Project Benefits
This Agreement will lead to technological advancement and breakthroughs to overcome barriers to the achievement of the State of California's statutory energy goals by understanding potential environmental impacts of offshore wind, identifying data gaps and prioritizing research, informing monitoring and mitigation actions, and streamlining planning through a quantification of ecological risk. This project will directly support the National Environmental Policy Act, California Environmental Quality Act, and other federal, state, and local statutory and regulatory reviews and approvals. These barriers need to be addressed early in California in a comprehensive approach that considers physical processes and their links to biological processes as the basis for assessing significance of anticipated environmental changes.
Environmental Sustainability
The agreement will identify the level of risk from floating offshore wind development on atmospheric and oceanographic circulation and the resulting effect on upwelling off the California coast. Upwelling is an essential process
Key Project Members
Kaus Raghukumar
Grace Chang
David Stoms
Subrecipients
Sandia National Laboratories
The Regents of the University of California, Santa Cruz
Match Partners
University of California, Santa Cruz
Integral Consulting Inc.
