FLORA project

Funded by the European Maritime, Fisheries and Aquaculture Fund (EMFAF), as part of the Flagship Atlantic call 2021, the FLOating RAdar (FLORA) project will develop and demonstrate an industrial-scale prototype of a multi-purpose ocean station with renewable energy generation and operational oceanography capabilities: the FLORA Ocean Station. The EMFAF Floating Radar (FLORA) project will develop a radar-ready ocean station for offshore wind farm environmental impact assessment. The siting of Offshore Wind (OSW) energy projects is critical: tough to undo once done. Thus, marine development projects require large amounts of accurate, environmental data i.e., abundant longitudinal data that is typically collected, through often dated methods, over long periods. These legacy methods and approaches are costly and inefficient. One main reason for e.g., is that reliable seabird data is difficult to capture as it is usually collected manually through costly and cumbersome ‘boat & binocular’ methods, i.e., manned, marine voyages during weather-permitting windows. Similarly, aircraft-supported campaigns are expensive and intrusive. Our remote, in-situ, solution will innovate these approaches. This 2-year project will develop an innovative, industrial-scale prototype of an ocean station with renewable energy generation and operational oceanography capabilities: the FLORA Ocean Station (O.S). Equipped with a novel sensor suite, the FLORA O.S. will be deployable as a low impact monitoring station for bird and biodiversity data acquisition at sea. The project will demonstrate the prototype in the Canary Islands. The FLORA project is being carried out by Composite Solutions, DA Renewable Technology, Elittoral SL, Laminak Energy and Wedge Global. The project is co funded by the European Commission under grant no. 101077554