[1] Named after the Greek titaness of the sea, the goal of the Tethys database is to promote environmental stewardship and the advancement of the wind and marine renewable energy communities.
As industry, academia, and government seek to develop new renewable energy sources from moving water and wind, there exists an opportunity to gather potential environmental effects of these technologies.
Tethys aims to evaluate and measure these effects to ensure that aquatic and avian animals, habitats, and ecosystem functions are not adversely affected, nor that important ocean and land uses are displaced.
[9] This three-year period continued to expand the collection of scientific papers, reports, and metadata on MRE development in relation to environmental effects.
Phase 2 also placed a strong emphasis on bringing together the community interested in environmental effects, which includes researchers, developers, regulators, and stakeholders.
During phase 3 (2016-2020), Annex IV continued to pursue efforts to identify and bring clarity to the importance of key MRE device interactions with the marine environment.
Ongoing work to collect, curate, and make accessible existing information on MRE environmental effects on Tethys has expanded the platform and reached ever growing audiences.
Two key products were developed during phase 1: 1) Tethys was expanded to include land-based wind and host WREN activities and 2) a white paper focused on adaptive management.
[12] The second phase of WREN included the expansion of Tethys, development of several white papers, continuation of the webinar series, and outreach and engagement efforts.
[13] The objective for the third phase of WREN is to assess the global state of the science related to the environmental effects of both offshore and land-based wind energy development.
Over the course of the third phase, WREN will: (1) Identify priority international needs for further research related to the environmental effects of wind energy development; (2) Aggregate, synthesize, and disseminate information on the global state of the science on high-priority issues and recommended practices within the wind energy industry; and (3) Assess the technical readiness and effectiveness of solutions and explore the feasibility of transferring technologies and methodologies among jurisdictions.
However, there are primary functions of Tethys that allow users to experience community, search through the data, and learn more about the new and exciting field of renewable energy.
[14] The Knowledge Base is primarily displayed as a table view that utilizes the alphabetical column sorting, facet box selection, and keyword search to allow users to easily sift through the information.