ACE AQUATEC: Accelerating Adoption of Responsible Marine Practices

Ace Aquatec was founded on the belief that good science and technological innovation can drive greener, more welfare-focused practices. With over 20 years experience in the aquaculture space, the company has grown from a family-run business of two into a team of 30 experts focused on accelerating the adoption of sustainable aquaculture practices that enhance marine welfare. 

Marine construction activities such as piling, drilling and blasting, and large scale dredging operations can cause deafness and other serious physical harm to local marine life if proper precautions are not taken. 

Developed in 2018 with Van Oord, FaunaGuard is an innovative modular system which uses academically-validated sound patterns with award-winning transducer technology to protect marine fauna around active construction sites by creating safe, temporary exclusion zones. 

Overseeing the operations for Ace Aquatec is FaunaGuard Manager, Andrew Gillespie who typically deploys the equipment on the side of an installation vessel prior to carrying out construction.

INNOVATIVE SAFE SOLUTIONS

The philosophy of FaunaGuard is to make optimal use of the hearing capabilities of the various target species of marine life. Each module is purpose-built for a target species – fish, seals, porpoises or turtles and uses modern acoustic techniques to guide them with specialised underwater sound patterns.              

“We have built up our reputation on developing award winning innovative solutions which help marine contractors take a welfare first approach to projects,”  explains Gillespie. “Acoustic mitigation devices are one of industry-standard solutions for preventing adverse effects of marine infrastructural development works, but not all devices are the same. Traditional devices in the market tend to apply a single pure tone on repeat and at a fixed loud volume, which can lead to deafness and habituation. The FaunaGuard philosophy differs in that a series of complex tonal patterns are applied, at the lowest possible levels of sound, in order to reduce the risk of a permanent or temporary shift in the auditory threshold. Playing these tones at a set of defined frequency spectra elicits a behavioural response from a particular species or species group. These academically-validated sound patterns at specific frequencies, devised by noted experts in Europe, with award-winning UK transducer technology, ensure better environmental safeguarding and protection from loud sound-producing activity than our competitors. 

“Regulatory bodies now openly state that sound levels emitted by some traditional devices are dangerous and detrimental to marine fauna; therefore, they would prefer to see safer, more welfare-focused devices like FaunaGuard being deployed as standard in offshore wind projects,” says Gillespie.

FaunaGuard is a plug-and-play solution that is very easy to set up and to use. It is typically deployed from the side of an installation vessel prior to the soft start of pile driving operations for the installation of subsea foundations and remains on throughout. Marine animals have ample time to move away before the sound-producing activity. The FaunaGuard Porpoise module was the first to market and has been the most popular hire, given the prevalence of harbour porpoises in the North Sea and other European bodies of water. The robust, offshore-ready hardware for the FaunaGuard Porpoise module was recognised by the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency in Germany, which approved installation and deployment in the German exclusive economic zone. Moreover, the FaunaGuard Fish, Seal and Turtle modules have been proven to avoid sound emissions in unnecessary frequency ranges by filtering out high-frequency harmonics.

“FaunaGuard has proven itself during use on several other offshore wind projects. Its most famous employment to date was at Van Oord’s Arkona offshore wind farm. It was also used on larger projects such as Gemini and Luchterduinen,” Gillespie says, “and here, the impact on porpoises in the vicinity of the project sites was drastically minimised. It was specifically requested for the first ever wind farm installation in Italy and multiple FaunaGuard modules were delivered to one of the major EPCI contractors as a component of the development of a substantial wind farm project in the Netherlands. 

“Due to the increasing regulations regarding sustainability, the role of safely guide animals away from construction works is becoming increasingly important, and can even be mandatory in order to execute a project. All these projects show that FaunaGuard is now seen as an essential component in managing  less harmful piling procedures around the world.”

CHARTING NEW WATERS

As the reputation and appeal of FaunaGuard grows, so too does the reach of its application. Its vaunted acoustic protection devices are regularly supplied to offshore wind farms North-West Europe, as well as further afield more recently in Qatar and the USA, for instance.

In recent months, Gillespie details, species-specific FaunaGuard modules have been deployed in large-scale projects in the Netherlands, France and Germany, and in the pipeline are further projects in Europe with scope to send modules to Azerbaijan, in a first for the company. “We most certainly have ambitions to be more consistently global and target the different emerging markets,” he underlines, “particularly in the Baltic Sea with the likes of Poland, Latvia and Estonia, for example.

“China, Japan, Taiwan and Vietnam are also all areas where offshore wind continues to become increasingly prevalent and relevant, and so it’s key for us is to keep a close eye on where the need arises to protect marine mammals, and then collaborate with contractors by implementing FaunaGuard into those work areas.” More of these areas are materialising worldwide, and the potential for offshore wind and therefore FaunaGuard’s landmark application in noise mitigation only grows.

“Countries need and want clean, renewable energy on the doorstep,” Gillespie finishes, “and this will only grow as stringent net-zero targets continue to be set. We want see our devices deployed as standard in every market and be the go-to noise mitigation solution for subsea offshore contractual works across the entire eco-system.”

The FaunaGuard team feel confident that their welfare-first systems will help increase industry and regulator confidence and ultimately protect a variety of targeted marine mammals around offshore construction sites.