Massive offshore wind project to play host to floating seaweed farm

The first commercial scale seaweed farm to be built within an offshore wind project is set to open later this year at the 1.5GW Hollandse Kust Zuid (HKZ) wind farm in the North Sea, an important milestone on the path towards determining a seaweed farms’ potential for carbon sequestration.

Developed by North Sea Farmers, an international non-profit membership organization for the seaweed sector, the floating seaweed farm will located between the 139 eleven megawatt (MW) wind turbines that make up the HKZ wind project off the coast between The Hague and Zandvoort.,

The site will aim to expand seaweed cultivation by using the otherwise unused space between turbines, and test improvements to cultivation.

Currently, many of the industries that utilise seaweed – including for use in sushi, animal feed, cosmetics, and agricultural products such as Australia’s homegrown Seasol-branded fertilisers – rely on imported or wild-harvested seaweed. (Seasol is an exception, relying on sustainable harvesting and storm cast kelp.)

North Sea Farmers believes there is more than enough room in current and future wind farms in the North Sea to scale production to 1 million tonnes of fresh seaweed per year by 2040 – an amount which could also lead to the sequestering and avoidance of millions of tonnes of CO2.

Backed by funding from online retail giant Amazon’s Right Now Climate Fund, the first phase of the North Sea seaweed Farm 1 was successfully installed last week, which saw two state-of-the-art ‘Eco-anchors’ that anchor the seaweed farm

These Eco-anchors are 13-metres in length and cover the top 2 metres with a natural restoration substrate which can include materials such as oyster shells, wood, or cork, and which serve as a home, shelter, and breeding ground for marine life.

The second phase, expected to begin in mid-October, will begin to seed and deploy seaweed nets. North Sea Farmers hopes that North Sea Farm 1 will be operational by year’s end and that it will serve to help catalyse the scaling up of the seaweed sector.

Once fully operational, North Sea Farm 1 will cover 5 hectares and is expected to produce at least 6,000kg of fresh seed in its first year.

“Hollandse Kust Zuid is one of the newest wind farms in the North Sea and is relatively close to the coast, about two hours by boat,” said Eef Brouwers, general director of North Sea Farmers.

“We hope this project will further convince people of the scalability of seaweed in the North Sea, as well as other forms of co-use like solar energy, wave energy, and nature restoration.”