Offshore Wind: Building the UK’s First Nearshore Artificial Nesting Structures

As offshore wind rises to meet ambitious climate goals, balancing the need for infrastructure with maintaining biodiversity has become a pressing challenge. One innovative, recent example is the installation of the UK’s first nearshore artificial nesting structures, designed to safeguard seabirds while enabling the development of the world’s single largest offshore wind farm.

Hornsea 3, developed by Ørsted, plays a critical role in the UK’s clean energy transition. Yet the project faced a significant environmental challenge by needing to protect the black-legged kittiwake, a seabird whose populations have declined sharply and even face extinction due to habitat loss and changing food availability.
The solution involved building three artificial nesting structures close to the shore, each capable of hosting up to 500 pairs of birds thanks to alternating rows of fully partitioned, open, and semi-partitioned ledges.

Installation Challenge

Each nearshore nesting structure was supported by a monopile – a steel foundation driven deep into the seabed. Installation in this way can often be time-consuming, requiring frequent pauses to manually check alignment and verticality – adding cost, time delays, as well as safety risks for crews.

To reduce uncertainty, Ørsted’s construction partner, Red7Marine, therefore turned to Fugro to provide a more