Periodic Reporting for period 2 - SEALENCE (Sub Sea Quieter, a disruptive, low cost and highly efficient Noise Mitigation System for reducing MRE installation noise and turbidity impacts on underwater ecosystems)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2024-01-01 al 2024-12-31
Underwater noise has been the subject of numerous scientific publications over the last 25 years and is now recognized as one of the worst maritime pollutions. Indeed, human activities produce huge noise in the environment and these noises propagate almost without attenuation. That’s why marine animals perceive accumulated noises up to several thousand kilometers around them.
Pile driving, by using hydraulic hammers weighing several tons to drive piles into the seabed during maritime works, creates one of the most intense uderwater noises up to 220dB, re.1 μ Pa@1m. This level is responsible for major impacts on ecosystems including the death of individuals.
Local citizens, notably fishermen and NGOs, are opposed to the pollution created by marine work, which perturbates marine life and environment and reduce fisheries reserves. As a result, they often put civil engineering companies and pile drivers under pressure. For instance, the Danish Fishermen Association has prevented the implementation of wind farms in the main Danish fishing zone & the NGOs Sea Shepherd and Surfrider Foundation Association were fierce opponents of the wind farm project in St-Brieuc in France.
That’s why the EU and some other countries in the world initiated a regulatory process including the MSFD in 2008 and the definition of the New European Biodiversity Strategy for 2030. These more and more strictest regulations hugely impact maritime works companies.
To address this underwater noise issue, 4 technologies exist today. However, due to the quite recent regulatory obligations, they are expensive, complex to implement and of limited efficiency. Consequently, they are still not widely used or effective and do not protect all works.
To tackle this vital issue for Mankind, we have developed the SubSea Quieter (SSQ) after 5 years of collaborative Research and development with submarine acoustic discretion experts and a 5 Millions € investment.
3 times patented, this innovative membrane is a 3D PVC fabric with a coating providing resistance and waterproofness. Once it is inflated, the break in impedance between the water and the introduced air but also it architecture and deformability dramatically attenuate sounds.
Two SSQ systems are available: the SSQ Blue Shield for harbour works that confine a large area with a sort of wall for several months and the SSQ Pile Driving that isolates single piles with a sort of sock for a couple of hours.
SSQ aims to become the Noise Mitigation System (NMS) reference thanks to it high acoustic mitigation efficiency - up to 99,9% power attenuation, 10 times more that current solutions - , it turbidity confinement, it easiness' to use without any additional boats and cranes and it capability with strong tide, current and depth conditions. SSQ is also 5 to 7 times cheaper than current solutions, allowing to save up to fifteen Millions per wind farm.
GREENOV is developing the SSQ Pile Driving to become the world NMS reference.
Pile driving, by using hydraulic hammers weighing several tons to drive piles into the seabed during maritime works, creates one of the most intense uderwater noises up to 220dB, re.1 μ Pa@1m. This level is responsible for major impacts on ecosystems including the death of individuals.
Local citizens, notably fishermen and NGOs, are opposed to the pollution created by marine work, which perturbates marine life and environment and reduce fisheries reserves. As a result, they often put civil engineering companies and pile drivers under pressure. For instance, the Danish Fishermen Association has prevented the implementation of wind farms in the main Danish fishing zone & the NGOs Sea Shepherd and Surfrider Foundation Association were fierce opponents of the wind farm project in St-Brieuc in France.
That’s why the EU and some other countries in the world initiated a regulatory process including the MSFD in 2008 and the definition of the New European Biodiversity Strategy for 2030. These more and more strictest regulations hugely impact maritime works companies.
To address this underwater noise issue, 4 technologies exist today. However, due to the quite recent regulatory obligations, they are expensive, complex to implement and of limited efficiency. Consequently, they are still not widely used or effective and do not protect all works.
To tackle this vital issue for Mankind, we have developed the SubSea Quieter (SSQ) after 5 years of collaborative Research and development with submarine acoustic discretion experts and a 5 Millions € investment.
3 times patented, this innovative membrane is a 3D PVC fabric with a coating providing resistance and waterproofness. Once it is inflated, the break in impedance between the water and the introduced air but also it architecture and deformability dramatically attenuate sounds.
Two SSQ systems are available: the SSQ Blue Shield for harbour works that confine a large area with a sort of wall for several months and the SSQ Pile Driving that isolates single piles with a sort of sock for a couple of hours.
SSQ aims to become the Noise Mitigation System (NMS) reference thanks to it high acoustic mitigation efficiency - up to 99,9% power attenuation, 10 times more that current solutions - , it turbidity confinement, it easiness' to use without any additional boats and cranes and it capability with strong tide, current and depth conditions. SSQ is also 5 to 7 times cheaper than current solutions, allowing to save up to fifteen Millions per wind farm.
GREENOV is developing the SSQ Pile Driving to become the world NMS reference.
The work carried out in our EIC project consists of improving the SSQ design and of adapting it to the offshore windfarms big monopile foundation up to a depth of 60m for piles of diameter up to 12m.
Small-scale demonstration in St Nazaire (outside the EIC project) carried out in early 2024, 6 months behind schedule, have brought very positive acoustic and operational results.
a JIP has been signed with 3 main partners and discussions are underway with 3 other ORE companies + all T&I for technical advisor status. Numerous exchanges enabled us to fine-tune requirements and inputs on procedures, pile-driving tools...but also add huge requirements. These provided us with useful information and input data for designing and scaling the SSQ system and its subsystems. They also demonstrated the need for improvement in a number of areas like panel architecture, local air management, panel deployment, SSQ openness...
It's Complicate WP1 & Need to resume & enrich WP1 SSQ design on a few sub-systems and on some principles. Basic design of the systems had been now made except for the panel tensioning system which is the most recent innovation. WP1 will be finalized by the end of 2025
WP2 was cancelled because suction anchoring was assessed as not relevant (report provided)
A numerical FSI model and basin tests had been performed to acquire sufficient knowledge about the behaviour of the SSQ in the waves and current to complete the design. WP3 are mostly finalized and report issued end of January 2025.
ORE & T&Is companies request an extra demonstration test on smaller scale (pin piles) but real pilling in open sea before to accept a test at real offshore scale
=> We Need to insert a step on our project before real size offshore demonstration => Changing EIC SEALENCE timeline
Small-scale demonstration in St Nazaire (outside the EIC project) carried out in early 2024, 6 months behind schedule, have brought very positive acoustic and operational results.
a JIP has been signed with 3 main partners and discussions are underway with 3 other ORE companies + all T&I for technical advisor status. Numerous exchanges enabled us to fine-tune requirements and inputs on procedures, pile-driving tools...but also add huge requirements. These provided us with useful information and input data for designing and scaling the SSQ system and its subsystems. They also demonstrated the need for improvement in a number of areas like panel architecture, local air management, panel deployment, SSQ openness...
It's Complicate WP1 & Need to resume & enrich WP1 SSQ design on a few sub-systems and on some principles. Basic design of the systems had been now made except for the panel tensioning system which is the most recent innovation. WP1 will be finalized by the end of 2025
WP2 was cancelled because suction anchoring was assessed as not relevant (report provided)
A numerical FSI model and basin tests had been performed to acquire sufficient knowledge about the behaviour of the SSQ in the waves and current to complete the design. WP3 are mostly finalized and report issued end of January 2025.
ORE & T&Is companies request an extra demonstration test on smaller scale (pin piles) but real pilling in open sea before to accept a test at real offshore scale
=> We Need to insert a step on our project before real size offshore demonstration => Changing EIC SEALENCE timeline
Demonstrating that our global system is easy to deploy and recover without delay - which would entail huge financial losses - and that our solution is acoustically efficient, even at low frequencies, are two of the main objectives of the EIC project.
To achieve these objectives and thus give confidence to our risk-oriented customers, we need to carry out the final sea trial scheduled for the end of our EIC project.
Our challenge is also to adapt and optimise all subsystems depending on the depth, monopile diameter and sea condition while designing as much as possible standard subsystems to allow to reuse them once invested on different wind farm installation works.
To grow, SSQ needs to gain the trust of T&I so that they agree to test it offshore. Considerable sums of money are at stake, so they want to be sure that SSQ works.
For this, it is necessary to have proof that the SSQ works in open seas, and to have the assurance that the SSQ is reliable and does not add operational risks. For the first point, we'd need to carry out a coastal-scale shakedown before going offshore. For the second point, SSQ needs to be developed in partnership with T&I to best meet their requirements, and the concept needs to be approved by experts in the field. These future stages of the project were prepared during these 2 first years of the project.
At the same time, we worked hard on preparing the commercial roll-out of the system, with an international study of players and markets, enabling us to update our business plan and identify partners and possible collaborative innovation projects around our SSQ.
As a result, we have been able to identify favourable countries around the world and have already signed several agreements with partners for a number of very promising offers, particularly in the USA, Ireland, Norway and the Northern Europe.
As part of these agreements, we have signed a JIP with curently 3 of the biggest companies in the sector and will be working with them to develop the SSQ so that they can use it on their next 9 sites worldwide. This JIP puts us well on the way to bringing our solution to market after the demonstration planned in EIC.
With these actions and commercial agreements and the demonstrations at model scale made in 2024, we will be able to launch our private equity fundaising in mid-202 and get on the right track for our scale-up by 2027
We also demonstrated for the very first tie operational SSQ acoustic efficiency from 12 to 20dB at low frequencies, even very low ones (50hz), that outperform current Noise Abatement System !
To achieve these objectives and thus give confidence to our risk-oriented customers, we need to carry out the final sea trial scheduled for the end of our EIC project.
Our challenge is also to adapt and optimise all subsystems depending on the depth, monopile diameter and sea condition while designing as much as possible standard subsystems to allow to reuse them once invested on different wind farm installation works.
To grow, SSQ needs to gain the trust of T&I so that they agree to test it offshore. Considerable sums of money are at stake, so they want to be sure that SSQ works.
For this, it is necessary to have proof that the SSQ works in open seas, and to have the assurance that the SSQ is reliable and does not add operational risks. For the first point, we'd need to carry out a coastal-scale shakedown before going offshore. For the second point, SSQ needs to be developed in partnership with T&I to best meet their requirements, and the concept needs to be approved by experts in the field. These future stages of the project were prepared during these 2 first years of the project.
At the same time, we worked hard on preparing the commercial roll-out of the system, with an international study of players and markets, enabling us to update our business plan and identify partners and possible collaborative innovation projects around our SSQ.
As a result, we have been able to identify favourable countries around the world and have already signed several agreements with partners for a number of very promising offers, particularly in the USA, Ireland, Norway and the Northern Europe.
As part of these agreements, we have signed a JIP with curently 3 of the biggest companies in the sector and will be working with them to develop the SSQ so that they can use it on their next 9 sites worldwide. This JIP puts us well on the way to bringing our solution to market after the demonstration planned in EIC.
With these actions and commercial agreements and the demonstrations at model scale made in 2024, we will be able to launch our private equity fundaising in mid-202 and get on the right track for our scale-up by 2027
We also demonstrated for the very first tie operational SSQ acoustic efficiency from 12 to 20dB at low frequencies, even very low ones (50hz), that outperform current Noise Abatement System !