Van Oord and Ace Aquatec have formed a strategic partnership whereby the FaunaGuard will be made available to all marine contractors and other interested parties.

The FaunaGuard is an innovative acoustic device to protect marine fauna near marine construction activities. It can be used during all offshore activities, such as rock installation, piling, drilling, blasting and large-scale dredging operations, to safely and temporarily deter marine fauna species using specialised underwater acoustics.

New Modules to Come

So far, it was only used by Van Oord on several projects, such as the Gemini Offshore Wind Park in the Dutch part of the North Sea. The porpoise module is the first module of the FaunaGuard that is now commercially available. In collaboration, Ace Aquatec and Van Oord will bring the other modules to market in the coming months and years and will continue research to develop further species-specific modules.

New Hardware for the FaunaGuard

Due to the increasing regulations regarding sustainability, the role of safely deterring animals away from construction works will become more important and is often even mandatory in order to execute a project.

Ace Aquatec is a Scottish company that delivers acoustic systems for marine and aquaculture application and electric stunning systems for fish farms. The partnership between Van Oord and Ace Aquatec combines their expertise to deliver new hardware for the FaunaGuard.

Nathan Pyne–Carter, Managing Director of Ace Aquatec: 'We look forward to supporting this exciting industry with our advanced systems which conjoin the technical expertise of Ace Aquatec with the experience and sounds that Van Oord has developed in their FaunaGuard innovation.'

Picture: The FaunaGuard: an innovative acoustic device to protect marine fauna near marine construction activities.