Strategic Environmental Assessment and Marine Renewable Energy: some insights from IAIA12

The sessions discussing Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) at the International Association for Impact Assessment conference (IAIA12) today gave me some real food for thought regarding if and how SEAs should be undertaken in an attempt to facilitate and manage the deployment of marine renewable energy (MRE) devices. Though none of the presentations directly addressed marine renewables, the insights into the efficacy of SEA processes provided some valuable insights which will inform my thinking on this issue.

The general consensus has to date appears to have been that SEAs are an essential part of moving the MRE industry forward. Nova Scotia, in Canada, and Scotland have been very proactive in developing SEAs. Scotland in particular is embarking on an extensive process driven by the desire to develop the MRE industry.

I had started to consider how SEAs and MRE may interpose in more detail, and specifically how SEA processes may be conducted in order to maximise their benefit. However, a number of points arose from the presentations given today which have made me question whether SEAs are an appropriate regulatory tool in the MRE context, and, if they are, how they can be used to maximum benefit.

In this post I will provide a brief outline of each relevant presentation, followed by some thoughts on how the issues raised call for a reconsideration of the role of SEA’s in relation to the emerging MRE industry.

Lewis Hurley, SEA Specialist with the Scottish Government’s Environmental Assessment Team, outlined the Scottish renewable energy SEA process in Scotland. Significantly, he noted how the SEA process must simultaneously be broad in scope and extensive in detail, due to the wide range of issues and the ambitious target of 100% electricity from renewables by 2020. In particular he identified the Electricity Generation Policy Statement (EGPS) and numerous technology roadmaps. Amanda Chisholm, also an SEA Specialist, explained that the SEA process is only part of a larger jigsaw comprised of numerous other acronym-laden processes, including traditional project-specific environmental impact assessment (EIA) and health impact assessment (HIA. Though HIA seems unlikely to be relevant to MRE).

The vast complexity of creating a truly comprehensive SEA will either lead to a very time-consuming process, spanning many years, or a SEA that is not detailed enough to be useful to particular industries. As MRE is rapidly developing, a long wait may mean that projects are unsustainably sited now, whereas a rushed SEA is unlikely to be useful. Yet a process like the Scottish SEA for MRE, which is identifying the key potential conflicts and identifying suitable sites, is emerging as a useful tool in long-term policy. Much more work is needed her to determine best practice in relation to MRE specifically.

Jørgen Brun, from the Norwegian Ministry of Environment, looked at SEA in Norway, lamenting the very complex nature of SEA processes, the range of issues that must be identified, and the overlap between these issues. Of particular concern are SEA processes that do not have a standardised methodology for weighing different issues against each other to determine the best outcome, and that the resultant plans are often not followed.

The lack of a standardised method of weighing different concerns is of paramount importance – without it, a SEA is no more than a bloated method for identifying problems. The lack of weighting could result in perverse outcomes for the MRE industry. For example, unfounded community concerns regarding environmental interactions could stall projects that provide significant climate mitigation benefits. It is, however, unlikely that an objective standard can be developed that adequately encompasses the huge range of considerations. Trying to circumvent the need for a standard by simply ruling out areas where there is concern is likely to lead to a shortage of suitable sites, in a field that is already somewhat constrained in its choice of sites. This suggests the need for pragmatism, sacrificing some certainty for simplicity and sound outcomes.

Courtney Fidler, a PhD candidate in the Department of Geography & Planning at the University of Saskatchewan, gave an engaging presentation of her work comparing SEA processes in three different jurisdictions. Noting that onshore SEAs are well-covered in the literature already, her research focuses on offshore oil and gas. This could possibly offer some insights that are transferable to MRE. Interestingly, Ms. Fidler’s research suggests that stakeholders feel SEA processes are too broad to be effective, contrary to prevailing academic opinion calling for such broad processes. She also notes the importance of consultation. Finally, she concludes that informal SEA may be more effective in some cases and that SEAs rarely actually filter through into project-level EIAs.

This again suggests the need for more research into SEAs for MRE. In particular, how should SEAs be scoped so as to assure that they are genuinely relevant and helpful and that they filter through to localised planning? Ms. Fidler’s suggestion regarding informal processes raises questions about the nature of the process: should SEAs for MRE be pursued in a formalised and process-oriented manner, such as in Scotland, or in a more free-flowing and industry/stakeholder/developer-oriented manner as in Nova Scotia?

Gesa Giesssler from Technische Univestat Berlin’s Department of Environmental Assessment and Environmental Planning has been assessing whether transposing experience with SEA to Germany could help the latter in its bid to rapidly transition to an energy system based on renewable energy. Of particular interest is that projects, particularly transmission upgrades, have often stalled in Germany due to vocal opposition from the community. By contrast, Ms. Gissler cites the US Solar PEIS scoping process, to which 15,900 submissions were received, putting nature conservation and water issues on the agenda.

Ms. Gissler’s research raises some interesting questions about how community engagement should be balanced with the needs of developers and the needs of the community more broadly in being supplied with safe, reliable and sustainable energy at affordable prices. On the one hand, Germany’s lack of consultation has lead to opposition and delays, whereas the US approach has facilitated community acceptance, but resulted in a lengthy process, even incorporating submissions by those not in states affected by the proposals. Obviously US regulators would already have been acutely aware of nature conservation and water issues, and have the expertise available to comprehensively identify conflicts, so it is clear that consultation is essentially used to manufacture consent and ensure community ownership and engagement.

There is a balance to be struck here and I suggest, based on the limited information I have at this point, that neither Germany nor America gets it quite right. This issue is important for the development of MRE, particularly as a novel technology that is likely to arouse suspicion. Already some communities in the US have begun to push back against proposed MRE developments, even though these are nascent and far from anything approaching utility-scale. By contrast, the Orkney Islands have emerged as a world-leading hub for MRE, with strong support from the community, due to both concerted efforts to cultivate support and partly because of the unique social, economic and cultural history of this particular place. There is clearly a need to identify the correct balance, both for MRE and SEA more generally.

Finally, Lisa White, also from the University of Saskatchewan, gave an excellent presentation summarising her efforts to compare SEA processes in six wide-ranging international case studies, including the Nova Scotia SEA regarding MRE in the Bay of Fundy, and develop an assessment of the contribution of SEA to energy policy development. She made a number of interesting points. She found that SEAs are not filtering through into localised EIAs. Also of concern is that the processes considered generally took between 3-5 years. Finally, she notes that SEA is meant to include consideration of alternatives, but in fact it is generally being used to justify the proposed option.

As already noted, lengthy timescales are problematic, but most concerning is that SEAs are not filtering through to localised assessments. Without this trickle-down effect envisaged for SEAs, they contribute little to existing EIA processes, and may in fact hinder development. This is particularly significant for MRE as a new industry, as delays take on particular significance, in contrast to established industries such as oil and gas that are able to more readily absorb delays.  The alternatives point was new to me given my limited existing knowledge of impact assessment. This raises issues for MRE because SEAs have so far been seen as a tool for developing consensus and facilitating sustainable deployment, whereas this suggests that an SEA should consider the possibility that there is a better option. Of course, developers of MRE technologies have a commercial incentive to pursue MRE over other renewables, so an SEA process that is genuinely open would likely be problematic for them.

What these observations suggest is a need to develop a more considered and nuanced approach to SEA in the context of MRE, rather than simply assuming that SEA drive MRE development. There is therefore a need to:

- More precisely define what SEA is, what it involves, and what the expectation should be in terms of end results, both generally and specifically in terms of MRE. In particular, is SEA a management tool or a development facilitation tool?;
- Determine the potential benefits that a SEA process could bring to the development of the MRE industry;
- Expound also the potential pitfalls of an SEA process for MRE;
- Conduct a balancing exercise to determine whether SEA is likely to be a useful process in the context of MRE; and
- Develop principles to guide SEA processes that are driven by MRE development.