Industry-leading data sharing partnership announced
A data sharing partnership has been agreed between BGS and Ossian, allowing BGS to advance its knowledge of the rock and soil conditions under the seabed.
02/11/2023
BGS has forged a partnership with Ossian — which will be one of the world’s largest floating wind farms on completion — to share valuable data that will support BGS’s work to understand earth and environmental processes.
The agreement means that BGS will be provided with information Ossian’s geophysical surveys, which will examine the seabed around its 858 km2 site. Once completely covered by ice, the site is now around 72 m below sea level and is situated 84 km off the east coast of Scotland.
The data will allow scientists to understand more about the seabed’s composition and subsurface structure, and how these have changed over time due to environmental changes and challenges. The partnership will provide BGS with data that will advance its knowledge and understanding of the rock and soil units under the seabed and update its baseline data for the region and benefit the offshore industry as a whole.
At BGS, we rely heavily on these sorts of collaborations to update our understanding of regional stratigraphy across sites, which can then be fed into publicly available datasets, reports and papers for all users of the seabed (and subsurface) to access in the future.
Data and scientific collaborations are essential for updating state-of-the-art knowledge and understanding of ground conditions for all to use in relation to future developments. This is a truly fantastic collaboration between BGS and Ossian Wind Farm, and BGS is very grateful to the joint venture for seeing the potential in this project.
Gareth Carter, BGS Marine Geoscientist.
BGS has worked with Ossian joint venture partner SSE Renewables on data sharing initiatives for more than a decade.
Ossian will be one of the largest floating offshore wind farms in the world, with up to 3.6 GW of potential capacity — enough to power up to six million homes.
It is one of the largest lease areas of the ScotWind projects, occupying 858 km2 of seabed 84 km off the east coast of Scotland.
The scale and floating technology make it a game changer in the UK renewable energy sector and a critical driving force behind the journey to net zero, offsetting up to 7.5 million tonnes of carbon emissions.
Ossian is a joint venture between SSE Renewables, Marubeni and CIP, bringing together local and global experience as well as unparalleled technical and environmental expertise.
It will provide a significant economic boost for the supply chain, with a multi-million-pound fund committed to support local orders and investments.
About the author
Gareth Carter
Marine geoscientist