World’s First Seaweed Farm In An Offshore Wind Farm

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The dream of constructing the world’s first business scale seaweed farm inside an offshore wind farm edged slightly nearer to actuality final week, when the Irish agency Merely Blue Group stamped its seal of approval on the North Sea Farm 1 undertaking. The rough-and-tumble atmosphere of an offshore wind array is just not the best place to determine a brand new aquaculture enterprise, however the crowded North Sea offers seaweed farmers with few different choices. A gaggle of seaweed trade stakeholders is set to make it occur, and if all goes based on plan the concept will unfold to wind farms all around the North Sea.

Offshore Wind Professional Likes New Seaweed Farm

North Sea Farm 1 is a creation of the commerce group North Sea Farmers. The plan requires a brand new seaweed operation to be deployed and seeded in an offshore wind farm, within the North Sea off the coast of the Netherlands.

The preliminary section requires the seaweed to occupy a 10-hectare website, or about 100,000 sq. meters. Deployment and seeding are anticipated this fall, with the primary harvest to come back proper after within the spring of 2025. The primary-year crop alone is anticipated to complete 6,000 kilograms.

The seal of approval from Merely Blue is vital, as a result of it lends further credibility to a seemingly not possible process (extra on that in a second). Merely Blue has already established a popularity for pushing that boundaries of offshore wind, together with floating wind know-how. The corporate has additionally expressed an curiosity in leveraging wind generators as anchors for different offshore business ventures.

“Merely Blue Group is concentrated on changing fossil fuels with clear ocean vitality, eradicating CO₂ from the ambiance, and creating sustainable sources of protein, whereas attracting funding into coastal communities,” the corporate explains.

“It has a eager curiosity in a number of use of wind farms and believes that environment friendly use of sea area is essential to working with the oceans on local weather change and produce extra native communities and provide chains into the transition to a low carbon financial system,” they add.

Up to now, a lot of the offshore wind multi-use exercise entails piggybacking photo voltaic panels, wave vitality converters, and inexperienced hydrogen techniques onto the generators. Fish farming can also be starting to emerge as a co-location alternative.

The seaweed angle is one other comparatively new improvement, and evidently Merely Blue wish to get out forward of the competitors. Final summer season the agency cemented a relationship with the Norwegian aquaculture firm Arctic Seaweed, geared toward creating prototype seaweed farms at offshore wind websites. The North Sea undertaking offers Merely Blue with a chance to speed up into business scale.

In a press assertion, Merely Blue co-founder and CEO Hugh Kelly emphasised the multi-use angle. “We recognise that seaweed cultivation is a helpful software in tackling local weather change and supporting our oceans.  We consider that in time offshore wind farms can have a number of makes use of, with seaweed manufacturing being one in every of them.”

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How Offshore Wind Can Kickstart The European Seaweed Trade

As for why hassle organising a seaweed farm far offshore, North Sea Farmers anticipates {that a} native, dependable supply of top quality seaweed would assist the European seaweed product trade scale up. Thus far, Europe’s reliance on the abroad provide chain has been an impediment to development.

One other new hurdle additionally arose on the provision aspect, when The Netherlands determined to prioritize offshore wind within the North Sea over different industries on the heels of the 2015 Paris Accord on local weather change. That left little room for the seaweed trade to broaden.

In 2020, North Sea Farmers lastly come across the concept of becoming a member of forces with the wind trade. “And with seaweed we noticed (and nonetheless see) a vibrant future for scale-up of manufacturing in offshore wind farms; safer and co-usage of in any other case unused North Sea area,” they clarify.

“That’s why we concluded in 2020 that as seaweed sector organisation we wanted to 1) assist the scale-up of domestically produced seaweed and a couple of) attempt to give higher visibility to the seaweed sector within the stakeholder discussions on the longer term utilization of the (Dutch) North Sea.”

By 2021 North Sea Farmers had organized a consortium to set the wheels in movement for North Sea Farm 1, consisting of the impartial analysis organizations Deltares and Plymouth Marine Laboratory, the local weather adaptation agency Silvestrum Local weather Associates, seaweed extract producers Algaia, and maritime contractor Van Oord.

The mixture of seaweed farming and offshore wind additionally caught the eye of the Amazon Proper Now Local weather Fund, which supplied North Sea Farmers with a €1.5 million grant final 12 months assist get the undertaking in gear, starting with the 10-hectare website.

As well as, North Sea Farmers works with DMEC, the Dutch Marine Power Centre. Although wave and tidal vitality are the principle focuses of DMEC, the group can also be pursuing actions to co-locate a number of offshore actions with wind farms.

North Sea Farm 1 can also be making the most of a number of years’ price of pilot initiatives within the North Sea. “Members equivalent to Murre Applied sciences and Boeg Nautic have constructed seeding and harvesting machines that may assist with secure and environment friendly offshore manufacturing,” North Sea Farmers notes.

The System 1 Of Seaweed Farming

The concept of co-locating seaweed farming with offshore wind appears easy sufficient, contemplating that seaweed farming by nature is an offshore operation. Nevertheless, as our buddies over on the World Wildlife Fund level out, a lot of the worldwide seaweed provide comes from comparatively calm, shallow coastal waters. Wind farms are positioned farther offshore, the place the situations for seaweed farming are more difficult.

North Sea Farmers cites The Seaweed Firm founder Joost Wouter, who has described seaweed farming at an offshore wind website because the “System 1 of seaweed manufacturing.” System 1 racing arguably has nothing to do with seaweed. Nevertheless, the principle level is that the offshore wind website requires a brand new, high-performance strategy to seaweed farming.

“It’s far, it’s deep, it’s harmful and it’s costly,” North Sea Farmers explains.

Issue apart, the group is assured that North Sea Farm 1 will kickstart a brand new trade in Europe. The group’s Supervisor of Farming and Know-how, Eef Brouwers, anticipates that 85,000 new jobs in seaweed farming, manufacturing, and gross sales might consequence if different offshore wind farms lend their stake within the North Sea to the seaweed trade.

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Picture: New seaweed farm to co-located with offshore wind generators within the North Sea (courtesy of Smartland Panorama Structure by way of Merely Blue Group).