EMF (Electromagnetic Fields) Modelling Workshop

Status: Complete

Start Date: August 2022

Lead Organisation: Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas), Scottish Government

To advance the understanding of anthropogenic electromagnetic fields (EMFs) from subsea power cables, an interdisciplinary expert workshop was facilitated by the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas) and the Scottish Government at the Royal institution, London on 17 and 18 January 2023.

Fifteen interdisciplinary participants from England, Scotland, Sweden, Belgium and the USA attended the workshop. The participants were technical experts, in electrical engineering, biology/ecology, oceanography, physics and geophysics, represented by government, industry, academia and research institutes.

After an introduction to set the scene of EMFs in the environment and their relevance to marine species, the workshop was divided in four sessions. The first session focused on the cable characteristics and their influence on the EMFs. The second session tackled the interactions between the natural environment and cable EMFs, in order to estimate the total EMF environment, which presents the EMFs in a more realistic and integrated way. In session three, outputs from session one and two were considered in discussions of how to best incorporate data into models. The last session focused on adding the biological context and determined the key outputs and recommendations from the workshop.

A series of key outputs and recommendations were developed, leading to actions to enhance the understanding of EMFs emitted by subsea power cables. For ease, they are separated into recommendations that can easily be applied now and those that require research and development, although some may be easily actionable. Collectively, these recommendations will facilitate continued progress towards a clearer understanding of the cable EMFs and potential impacts on species.

The EMF technical workshop outputs fed directly into a follow-on project, also funded by OWEC, titled FLOWERS – Floating Offshore Wind Environmental Response to Stressors.