The Crown Estate wins global Esri award for geospatial innovation
Published by Jessica Casey,
Editor
Energy Global,
The Crown Estate has won an Esri ‘Special Achievement in GIS Award’ for its programme that helps plan seabed use around England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Considered a world first, the spatial planning system was developed by The Crown Estate’s Marine and Digital teams and includes data from over 250 sources across 10 sectors, allowing for scenario planning across a wide range of marine industries.
The Whole of Seabed approach uses Esri’s geographical information system (GIS) software to create scenarios which simultaneously consider the demands upon the seabed up to 2050, including offshore wind, carbon capture, telecoms, and minerals, whilst protecting the interests of nature. This method has enabled The Crown Estate to play a key role in supporting the UK's position as a world leader in offshore wind development, a sector which generated enough energy to power 50% of UK homes in 2023.
The award was made at the Esri annual User Conference in California, one of the world’s largest geospatial industry events with around 40 000 physical and virtual attendees. ‘Special Achievement in GIS Awards’ recognise organisations which are demonstrating geospatial leadership and setting new precedents for the global GIS community. More than 100 000 entries were submitted with the winners selected by Esri’s Founder and President, Jack Dangermond.
“Users around the world are applying GIS in countless fields to take a geographic approach toward solving complex problems and global issues,” said Dangermond. “It is my honour to recognise these organisations for their innovative work integrating geospatial technology across industries, helping to build a better world.”
By prioritising different data, The Crown Estate programme ensures all environmental, industrial and social interests and constraints are fairly represented. This delivers the best evidence available to support marine spatial planning. Scenarios are then compared in a dashboard to understand the differences in cost, constraint, or displacement, among other criteria.
“Geospatial innovation is helping The Crown Estate balance a green energy transition to net zero and nature recovery whilst creating a thriving marine economy,” added Gus Jaspert, Managing Director, Marine at The Crown Estate. “We are incredibly proud to win this award which is testament to our world-leading work in spatial analysis using Esri software, and a demonstration of our ongoing investment in digital technology and skills. It helps make sense of highly complex and competing demands on the seabed, driving better planning decisions for the benefit of the nation for years to come.”
The Crown Estate is an independent company which manages a diverse £16 billion portfolio, including the seabed and much of the coastline around England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, urban centres, and development opportunities. Through the management of its portfolio, company is helping to solve some of the nation’s major challenges, including delivering net zero and the energy transition, enhancing biodiversity and nature recovery, and creating thriving communities by stimulating regeneration and economic growth.
“With an increasingly busy seabed, it is critical that development decisions are based on robust data and evidence,” commented Michelle Moore, Spatial Planning Director, The Crown Estate. “Advanced Esri spatial analysis tools allow us to tackle complex, multidimensional problems in an open and transparent way. Our unique ability to plan for the long-term and convene a wide range of stakeholders, helps us to balance all interests to achieve the best outcomes for net zero, nature and economic growth.”
Pete Wilkinson, Managing Director, Esri UK, concluded: “The Crown Estate’s approach is a best-in-class example of how geospatial expertise can deliver valuable outcomes. True innovators in marine spatial planning, the team’s work is of national importance making them a very worthy winner of the award.”
For more news and technical articles from the global renewable industry, read the latest issue of Energy Global magazine.
Energy Global's Summer 2024 issue
The Summer 2024 issue of Energy Global starts with a guest comment from Terrawatt on the streamlining of the permitting process in Italy, before moving on to a regional report from Frost & Sullivan on the energy landscape in Asia Pacific. This issue looks at key topics such as wind installation vessels, offshore wind turbine foundations, weather analysis, solar maintenance, and more!
Read the article online at: https://www.energyglobal.com/wind/02082024/the-crown-estate-wins-global-esri-award-for-geospatial-innovation/
You might also like
An evolution in wind energy
Stefano Santoni, Davi, Italy, examines the need for offshore and onshore wind turbine components to meet increasing demand in the wake of the growth of wind energy.