The Marine Data Exchange digital platform will now include data on offshore enterprises in Scottish waters.
Following an agreement between the Crown Estate and Crown Estate Scotland, the Marine Data Exchange has been extended to cover Scottish waters.
The deal will allow all developers working in UK waters to benefit from a more streamlined and comprehensive dataset to inform offshore developments, supporting the faster, more sustainable roll-out of offshore technologies that are critical to the UK’s energy transition, while protecting and restoring the biodiversity of the country’s seas and the marine environment.
Created by The Crown Estate in 2013, the Marine Data Exchange is the first of its kind and holds freely available survey data, research and evidence relating to the seas around England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and, from today, Scotland.
The platform is free to access, with a simple to use search function providing access to an unparalleled range of information from a variety of industries, including offshore wind, tidal and wave energy, and sub-sea cables, as well as data from research and evidence projects.
The inclusion of Scottish data will allow the platform to feed UK-wide data for the first time into other offshore wind initiatives run by The Crown Estate.
This includes its Offshore Wind Evidence & Change programme, a £50m initiative which enables the gathering of data and evidence for the sustainable development of offshore wind in the UK, and its Offshore Wind Evidence & Knowledge Hub.
Head of marine planning at The Crown Estate Olivia Thomas said: “By taking a UK-wide view from today, this new arrangement will benefit the Marine Data Exchange’s many users, the natural environment, and support the faster, more sustainable roll-out of offshore technologies that are critical to the UK’s transition to a net zero energy future.”
Interim director of marine for Crown Estate Scotland Sian Wilson said: “With the new, expanded Marine Data Exchange now live, a wide range of people and organisations will now benefit from a UK-wide resource of high-quality data, essential to advancing work in many areas.
“The expanded MDE will help support the delivery of the recently concluded ScotWind Leasing round, which involves 20 projects totalling 27.6GW of clean energy and which is a key part of the UK’s efforts to tackle the climate emergency, secure our energy supply, and generate billions of pounds of investment in the economy.”