Ørsted investiert in Spoor und geht eine Technologieentwicklungspartnerschaft ein, um die Vogelweltdaten von Offshore-Windparks zu verbessern

(WK-intern) – Ørsted wird beim Testen und Kommerzialisieren einer neuen Technologie helfen, um mehr und bessere Daten zur Vogelwelt in seinen Windparks auf der ganzen Welt zu sammeln.

Das neue kostengünstige und hochgradig skalierbare Vogelüberwachungstool wird letztendlich Ørsteds Bestreben unterstützen, ab 2030 für alle neuen Projekte eine positive Nettoauswirkung auf die Biodiversität zu erzielen.

Ørsted und die Risikokapitalgesellschaften Nysnø Climate Investments (Nysnø), Wiski Capital, Norrsken Foundation und Antler haben über eine Seed-Finanzierungsrunde in Spoor AI investiert. Ørsted wird auch eine Partnerschaft mit Spoor eingehen, um seine Technologie in den Offshore-Windparks von Ørsted zu entwickeln und zu kommerzialisieren. Spoor ist ein norwegisches „Deeptech“-Start-up, das ein speziell entwickeltes System mit künstlicher Intelligenz (KI) entwickelt hat, um die Vogelwelt in Offshore-Windparks zu überwachen und zu verfolgen.

Überbrückung der Datenlücke beim Verständnis der Vogelwelt auf See

Eine rasche Energiewende ist ein entscheidendes Puzzleteil, um den Verlust der biologischen Vielfalt aufzuhalten und umzukehren, da der Klimawandel zunehmend zu einer seiner größten Ursachen wird. Aber mehr neue Windinfrastruktur bedeutet mehr Interaktion mit der natürlichen Welt, die durch Klimaschutzmaßnahmen geschützt werden soll. Aus diesem Grund sucht Ørsted nach neuen Wegen, um das Verständnis dieser Wechselwirkung weiter zu verbessern – um potenzielle negative Auswirkungen zu minimieren und gleichzeitig Maßnahmen zur proaktiven Verbesserung der Biodiversität zu ergreifen.

Durch die Zusammenarbeit mit Spoor wird Ørsted sein Verständnis darüber, wie sich Vögel verhalten, während sie in der Nähe seiner Windparks unterwegs sind, weiter verbessern. Durch ein besseres Verständnis des Vogelverhaltens kann das Design von Windparks im Einklang mit Ørsteds Verpflichtung, erneuerbare Energie zu liefern, die sich netto positiv auf die Biodiversität auswirkt, für alle neuen Energieprojekte, die ab 2030 in Auftrag gegeben werden, weiter optimiert werden.

Es ist bekanntermaßen schwierig, das Verhalten von Vögeln zu überwachen, weshalb die Offshore-Windindustrie derzeit Vorsorgemodelle verwendet, um mögliche Kollisionen in Windparks bei der Planung abzuschätzen. Mehrere neuere Studien, darunter auch von Ørsted unterstützte, legen nahe, dass die tatsächlichen Kollisionen deutlich weniger sind als derzeit modelliert. Das Spoor-System kann unser Vertrauen in diese Vorhersagen stärken und somit unsere Wissensbasis erweitern und uns dabei helfen, robuste statistische Beweise in diesem Bereich zu erstellen.

Daten von Systemen wie dem von Spoor werden Ørsted und der Offshore-Branche für erneuerbare Energien helfen, das Design von Windparkprojekten zu verfeinern und gleichzeitig die Effizienz zu verbessern. Dies wiederum wird es der Offshore-Windindustrie ermöglichen, Offshore-Windprojekte schneller zu bauen und das Tempo zu erreichen, das erforderlich ist, um den Klimawandel im Einklang mit dem 1,5-Grad-Szenario abzuschwächen.

Ørsted invests in Spoor, enters technology development partnership to improve birdlife data from offshore wind farms

Ørsted will help test and commercialise a new technology to collect more and better birdlife data at its windfarms around the world. The new cost-effective and highly scalable bird monitoring tool will ultimately support Ørsted’s ambition to deliver net-positive biodiversity impact for all new projects from 2030.

Ørsted and venture capital firms Nysnø Climate Investments (Nysnø), Wiski Capital, Norrsken Foundation, and Antler have invested in Spoor AI via a seed funding round. Ørsted will also enter into a partnership with Spoor to develop and commercialise its technology at Ørsted’s offshore wind farms. Spoor is a Norwegian ‘deeptech’ start-up which has built a specially designed artificial intelligence (AI) system to monitor and track birdlife at offshore windfarms.

Bridging the data gap in understanding birdlife at sea

Rapid energy transition is a crucial piece of the puzzle in halting and reversing biodiversity loss, as climate change is increasingly one of its biggest causes. But more new wind infrastructure means more interaction with the natural world, which climate action seeks to protect. That’s why Ørsted is looking for new ways to further improve itsunderstanding of that interaction – to minimise potential negative impact alongside action to proactively enhance biodiversity.

By working with Spoor, Ørsted will continue to improve its understanding of how birds behave while travelling in the vicinity ofits wind farms. With better understanding of bird behaviour, wind farm design can be further optimised in line with Ørsted’s commitment to deliver renewable energy that has a net-positive biodiversity impact for all new energy projects commissioned from 2030.

It is notoriously challenging to monitor bird behaviour, which is why the offshore wind industry currently uses precautionary models to estimate possible collisions at wind farms when designing them. Several recent studies, including ones supported by Ørsted, suggest that actual collisions are significantly fewer than currently modelled. The Spoor system can increase our confidence in those predictions, thus increasing our knowledge base and helping us build robust statistical evidence in this field.

Data from systems like Spoor’s will help Ørsted and the offshore renewables industry refine wind farm project designwhile improving efficiency. In turn, this will allow the offshore wind industry to build offshore wind projects faster and achieve the pace necessary to mitigate climate change in line with the 1.5°C scenario.

Benjamin Sykes, Vice President and Head of Ørsted’s global centre of environmental expertise, said: “As governments around the world ramp up ambitious plans to grow offshore wind energy capacity, and to curb climate change, it’s imperative that we continually improve our understanding of bird behaviour, so we can design and build wind farms that actively deliver net-positive biodiversity outcomes.”

He continued: “Spoor’s technology will help us better understand how different species of birds behave at and around offshore wind farms. It’s also an exciting example of how agile, entrepreneurial companies can deliver high-impact innovation when supported with knowledge sharing and investment by key industry players.”

Ask Helseth, CEO of Spoor, said: “We’re delighted to receive this direct investment from Ørsted, a renewable energy company with an industry-leading biodiversity ambition and the world’s largest offshore wind developer. It’s a clear signal of confidence in Spoor and the potential of our technology. This investment will accelerate the development of our software, its roll-out speed on existing wind farms, and enable new projects to include the highest standard of AI-based bird monitoring from day one.”

The difference Spoor’s technology makes

The unique benefit of Spoor’s system – in comparison to available alternatives like thecombination of high-specification cameras, radars, and human observers – is that the company’s AI technology has been developed to accurately identify and track birds specifically. The Spoor system has no blind spots and is significantly more cost-effective than the alternatives.

Once the technology is tested and commercialised, Ørsted and the broader offshore wind industry will have access to significantly more reliable camera arrays than was previously possible, providing better results. In turn, this will enable Ørsted to install many more cameras across a wind farm and get much greater spatial and temporal data coverage to ensure a much better understanding of bird behaviour.

Ørsted is the first offshore wind developer to invest in Spoor.

Maria Hoffmann, Head of Ventures & Open Innovation at Ørsted, said: “Ørsted’s Ventures & Open Innovation team is delighted to invest in Spoor and support their efforts to help the offshore wind sector build robust data on bird behaviour at sea. This investment also signals our commitment to support innovative start-up companies through our Ventures Programme and to develop knowledge and technologies that can reduce cost and risk, while enhancing sustainability and producing economic benefits.”

She continued: “Working through Ørsted’s wider Research, Development & Innovation Programme, we’re also excited to leverage our knowledge, data, and assets to accelerate Spoor’s technology development journey – as we have done, and continue to do, with many hundreds of collaboration partners.”

Ørsted’s R&D partnership with Spoor

Ørsted will share its knowledge and data from selected offshore wind farms with Spoor plus provide access to several real-world demonstration sites: Ørsted’s own offshore wind farms. Ørsted is investigating opportunities to test and demonstrate the Spoor technology at several locations as part of its global fleet of offshore wind farms and will kick-start this partnership during 2022.

The partnership will vastly accelerate Spoor’s technology development timeline by training the AI to relevant regional bird species and help ready the system to deliver better outcomes faster and at greater scale once it is commercially available to the broader industry.

Ørsted is currently one of the most experienced offshore wind developers when it comes to collating data on marine birdlife and using that data to mitigate potential negative biodiversity impacts when designing wind farms. Building on this new partnership with Spoor, Ørsted looks forward to growing this knowledge base even further.

PR: Ørsted Group

PB: Ørsted investiert in ein Vogelüberwachungstool um die Biodiversität an Offshore-Windparks zu verbessern