Redefining what’s possible in offshore monitoring: inside Spoor’s collaboration with RWE’s SeaMe project

The way we understand marine ecosystems is changing. Offshore monitoring, once defined by manual observation and static data, is being reshaped by technology, collaboration, and scientific transparency.

Among the projects driving this shift is SeaMe, RWE’s Sustainable Ecosystem Approach in Monitoring the Marine Environment. The initiative brings together research institutions, technology partners, and industry specialists exploring how innovation can help renewables and nature coexist.

For Spoor, SeaMe is more than a collaboration. It reflects a shared belief that better data and open science can redefine how offshore biodiversity is understood, and how responsible energy development can evolve.

A shared vision of smarter monitoring

A shared vision of smarter monitoring

In Spoor’s latest presentation, SeaMe features as part of a broader story about what is driving innovation in offshore wind: better data, transparent science, and collaboration between disciplines.

Spoor’s role within SeaMe focuses on improving how bird movement and collision risk are monitored around offshore turbines. But that contribution sits within a much wider ecosystem of innovation. Each partner, from academic researchers to environmental engineers, is rethinking a different part of the biodiversity monitoring process.

Together, they are showing that effective monitoring is not just about compliance or data capture. It is about building a shared understanding of how offshore ecosystems function and evolve in real time.

Innovation grounded in science

Innovation grounded in science

Scientific innovation sits at the heart of SeaMe. As RWE’s Dr Petra Ringeltaube, Senior Environment & Permit Manager, explains, the motivation for the project came from the need to make environmental monitoring “more meaningful and effective.”

“We have been monitoring offshore wind farms since 2013 using largely the same techniques,” she says. “Time has moved on, and so have the possibilities to do things better.”

SeaMe challenges traditional survey methods by integrating multiple data sources, from bird and fish behaviour to weather and turbine status, into a cohesive ecological picture. Spoor’s contribution builds on that principle. Its optical monitoring systems are designed to provide verifiable, high-resolution data that help scientists interpret species interactions, flight patterns, and environmental conditions more accurately.

This approach is not about replacing fieldwork but enhancing it, creating datasets that are continuous, automated, and scientifically auditable.

The human side of innovation

The human side of innovation

Behind every technical advance are people who believe in doing things differently. SeaMe’s progress reflects the shared mindset of scientists, engineers, and environmental leaders who combine expertise across boundaries.

For Dr Ringeltaube, collaboration starts with communication. “Projects like SeaMe only work if there is honesty and openness,” she notes. “You cannot succeed if everyone protects their own territory. You need different kinds of expertise, and that diversity is what makes a project like this effective.”

That same philosophy drives Spoor’s work with operators and regulators. Each deployment is a co-design process, aligning scientific requirements with the realities of offshore construction and long-term monitoring. The aim is to turn complex ecological questions into measurable outcomes that support both conservation and renewable expansion.

Collaboration as a catalyst

Collaboration as a catalyst

SeaMe is still early in its journey, but it already signals a shift in how the industry approaches biodiversity monitoring. Instead of waiting for regulation to catch up, operators like RWE are leading from the front, testing new frameworks and technologies that can raise the bar for environmental standards across Europe.

As Dr Ringeltaube puts it: “Someone has to start. Everyone recognises that we need to modernise how we monitor, but making that happen takes funding, persistence, and courage.”

RWE's recent Energy Innovation Award 2025 underscores the company's role in leading renewables innovation, and SeaMe is a core part of that momentum.

The project has also been shortlisted for the IMCA Award 2025-Sustainability, further highlighting how collaborative approaches like SeaMe are shaping the future of responsible offshore development.

“Someone has to start. Everyone recognises that we need to modernise how we monitor, but making that happen takes funding, persistence, and courage.”

That spirit of initiative underpins SeaMe’s design, and the reason Spoor was invited to contribute. Spoor’s AI-led monitoring tools offer a data-driven complement to the wider ecosystem approach, a way to measure interactions between wildlife and wind infrastructure with consistency, transparency, and scientific rigour.

Yet, as Spoor’s team often stresses, innovation is collective. SeaMe’s strength lies in the network of collaborators, research bodies, technology providers, and marine scientists, each advancing a different dimension of monitoring capability.

Looking ahead: a new lens on offshore ecosystems

Looking ahead: a new lens on offshore ecosystems

The outcomes of SeaMe will take time, but the direction is clear. Monitoring is evolving from discrete field studies into an integrated system of continuous observation and analysis.

For Spoor, participating in projects like SeaMe is about more than technology. It is about helping shape a shared scientific foundation for the next decade of offshore wind.

By combining data integrity, interdisciplinary collaboration, and human curiosity, projects like SeaMe are redefining what is possible.

As Dr Ringeltaube reflects, “Whatever the results turn out to be, they will be exciting, because they will expand our understanding of how ecosystem-based monitoring can work in practice.”

Closing thought

Closing thought

Spoor’s collaboration within SeaMe is a small part of a much larger movement: an effort across industry and science to align renewable growth with ecological understanding.

It is proof that progress in offshore monitoring does not happen in isolation, it happens when innovators, researchers, and operators decide to see the bigger picture together.

Learn more about the project on RWE’s official SeaMe page.