Underwater noise measurement and simulation for offshore wind farm in Taiwan

Because of the potential of offshore wind energy in the Taiwan Strait, the development of offshore wind farm is feasible and cost-effective. With the global trends in green energy, Taiwan are actively promoting the “Thousand Wind Turbines” Project from 2012. Up to now, there are three met masts in different offshore demonstration wind farms established in 2015 and two mono-pile foundations completed in 2016. The objective is to install about 800 offshore wind turbines, and 450 onshore wind turbines prior to the year of 20-0. However, the planned location for potential offshore wind farms is close to the habitat of the Sousa chinensis (also called Indo-Pacific Humpback Dolphin or Chinese White Dolphin). Pile driving noise or operation noise have shown to cause behavioural disturbance or auditory damage to marine mammals. At a distance that is considered safe from PTS and TTS, noises from impact or vibratory pile driver are still high enough to disturb the behavior of marine mammals. In this study, underwater ambient noise measurements are shown to enhance the understanding of the soundscapes of the planned location for potential offshore wind farms. In the meantime, pile-driving noise measurements of two mono-pile foundations are made in 2016. For noise impact assessment, Range-dependent Acoustic Model (RAM-PE) is applied to calculate the range of noise impact zone with the sound speed profiles produced by POM-based Taiwan Coastal Ocean Nowcast/Forecast System (TCONFS). This work is supported by Ministry of Science and Technology of Taiwan, Taiwan Generations Corporation and Swancor Ind. Co., Ltd.