Pilot Project · Offshore Wind · Nature-Inclusive
A pilot collaboration between Restore Blue and Natural Power, bringing biodiversity opportunities, regulatory evidence, and greater client confidence into the earliest stages of offshore wind development.
01 - The Brief
Natural Power is a leading renewable energy consultancy that delivers technical, environmental, and consenting expertise across a full project lifecycle. Offshore wind consenting and environmental advisory is a core part of what they do.
Today, offshore wind is the backbone of Europe's energy transition - but the consenting window is tightening, and developers are under increasing pressure to prove projects can deliver net-positive outcomes for marine life, not just minimise harm.
Natural Power and Restore Blue piloted a new approach to finding the correct nature-inclusive solutions for offshore wind projects: replacing manual research with Restore's platform. The objective was simple - find solutions faster, produce evidence-backed outputs, and gather user feedback to shape the platform's next phase of development.
The two-month pilot ran across two live projects and three active use cases: EIAR development, derogation case building and project bid submissions. This gave the Restore Blue platform a real-world test in a high-stakes consultancy environment. The team identified 12 viable solutions, assembled them 3x faster than with their previous manual approach, and the pilot converted into a 12-month contract.
Challenge
Natural Power's team relied on manual efforts when searching for nature-inclusive solutions including web searches, conference attendance and internal knowledge sharing. Without a central evidence base for the team to work with, the workload is increased and discovery is significantly slower.
Value
Restore Blue brings nature-inclusive solution discovery into one workflow - instant, comprehensive technology information, all in one place. Natural Power's project team could query the platform in minutes and generate structured exportable reports for client use - replacing hours of manual compilation.
02 - The Pilot
Support was given to Natural Power's project leads and marine consenting specialists across their offshore wind projects.
In Their Words
"Having that one stop shop is really, really beneficial in terms of time saving."
On Evidence & Reporting
"The reporting tool is incredibly useful - you've got all of that research and backing behind it."
On Regulatory Evidence
"Being able to produce evidence-backed reports increases client confidence and buy in from their engineering teams."
03 - Impact
We work with developers, consultancies and regulators to make biodiversity a designable, defensible input - from early site selection through to operations and decommissioning.