New Seafloor-Mapping Drones Aim to Accelerate Offshore Wind Energy Installations

In late May, the Biden administration announced a plan to dramatically expand offshore wind energy installations along the Pacific, Atlantic, and Gulf coasts, with the ultimate goal of adding 30,000 megawatts of clean energy (enough to power 10 million homes) by 2030. It’s an ambitious, multi-billion-dollar initiative in the fight against climate change, but is it realistic to expect the installation of an estimated 2,000 offshore wind turbines in less than a decade? 

Those standing on the side of answering yes to this question understand that innovation is the key to pulling off an infrastructure project of this magnitude. Unlike the open plains and rounded hills that traditionally host wind turbines, analyzing the seafloor geology and topography for proper placement isn’t a simple exercise. To put it in perspective, with only 20% of the ocean seafloor mapped, we basically know more about the surface of Mars than we do Earth’s hidden depths. 

Startup Bedrock is aiming to help shine a light on this murky problem by probing the seas with its new fleet of electric autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV). Each small submarine is equipped with an array of sensors for mapping the ocean floor and is fully capable of venturing up to 56 miles (90 kilometers) from shore and operating in depths up to 1,000 feet. As fixed foundation offshore wind turbines can presently only be installed at maximum depths of 160 feet (50 meters), this makes Bedrock the perfect partner for discovering ideal underwater sites. 

“Current ocean mapping techniques are ship-based, usually constrained to the surface, and are time consuming, which makes them expensive and harmful to the environment,” Bedrock CEO and co-founder Anthony DiMare tells Treehugger. “Bedrock drastically reduces the time associated with mapping and data collection, and improves efficiency through leveraging AUVs and a cloud-based method of data management. Our new mapping and data collection techniques will help support an explosion in offshore wind energy projects, helping to make ambitious government carbon neutral goals a reality.” 

Near-instant access to ocean floor data

Whereas traditional marine surveys can take up to a year to collect and process data, Bedrock’s AUVs transmit data to a cloud-based platform called Mosaic that allows clients to start working with the results nearly right away and from anywhere in the world. 

“Offshore wind projects usually require anywhere from 3-6 surveys before construction can even begin,” shares DiMare. “With Bedrock’s survey AUVs that time is dramatically reduced, sometimes by up to a factor of 10. The operational capabilities of our AUV system, plus our survey agnostic cloud platform Mosaic, we can help accelerate offshore wind turbines development.”

After the planning stages, DiMare says their AUVs can also be an integrated part of a project’s post-construction maintenance plan; in particular to help assess structural integrity in the wake of an earthquake or hurricane. “Anytime there are major weather, ocean, or geologic events, it will be significantly easier to do acoustic assessments of asset integrity, and the surrounding seafloor that can influence the future health of the project,” he adds.

Safeguarding marine health and exploring opportunities beyond wind

While a fleet of drones mapping the seafloor is helpful to improving our understanding of Earth’s oceans, Bedrock was careful that such insights do not come at the expense of marine life. In an effort to completely minimize sound harassment in Marine Protected Areas, the company utilizes smaller sonar sensors that are close to the seafloor and operate in frequencies safe for animals. In addition, the AUVs only travel at 2-3 knots (roughly 2.3 mph-3.45 mph), which reduces the chance of animal or environmental damage as they are transitioning.

Beyond the offshore wind industry, Bedrock is also exploring other ways its AUVs might benefit other marine-based efforts. 

“Currently our marine surveys are optimized for offshore wind projects, tidal power, cable laying, nearshore environmental mapping for coastal management,” says DiMare. “In the future, we’re also capable of serving budding new markets like: sequestered carbon storage, hydrogen production facilities, and more efficient data centers that live on the seafloor.” 

Presently, the company is offering a free 50 gigabytes of seafloor data storage on its Mosaic platform for anyone interested in giving it a shot. It’s the beginning, DiMare says, of what he hopes will one day become a platform used by anyone with an interest in analyzing seafloor surveys. 

“The platform is extremely modular and meant to scale across many different types of nodes,” he says. “It’s hard to say exactly what the future will hold, but we do know that we want to work toward an ocean that is being continuously mapped at least once annually.”