The ambitious UK Government Goal of 50 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030 and further expansion for Net Zero by 2050 will be critical to driving the national transition to a green society. As such, large scale deployment of offshore wind is needed to meet these goals.
To do this, offshore wind needs to co-exist and operate side by side with UK Air Defence and Air Traffic Management Surveillance Capabilities. Thus, the need to assess existing and emerging options for the mitigation of the impacts of offshore wind farms on aviation surveillance systems (i.e. radars) was identified by the OWIC Aviation & Radar Workstream.
This Report was commissioned to consider the opportunities and challenges of mitigation options including: windfarm layout optimisation, stealth technology, and data and information exchange, in particular the considerations of such options to offshore wind farms.
While these topics have previously and still remain a consideration for aviation and defence stakeholders, little to date has reviewed and documented these through the lens of the offshore wind sector. For these to have any chance of being successful they need to be plausible and possible for all parties.
The conclusions and recommendations of this Report reinforce the importance of collaboration between all stakeholders and identify key areas where further evidence-gathering and work may be needed.
