Offshore Activities at The Seaweed Company
Seaweed farming is an incredibly fast-growing sector of aquaculture and the demand for seaweed is increasing as its benefits are becoming more recognized. Aside from a food source, seaweed can also be used to reduce the impacts of agriculture and help address the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals. To meet these increased demands of seaweed, innovative approaches need to be developed to harvest at a global commercial scale.
Currently, seaweed farming is being conducted along coastlines, which can be limited in some countries or crowded with other nearshore or recreational activities. Finding suitable areas for seaweed farming and getting permits can mean that utilizing coastlines is not a sustainable way to meet future growth in this industry. One innovative approach to seaweed farming is to move farms offshore.
Although weather conditions, such as high waves and strong currents, can mean operating in this environment is challenging, it could be a solution to grow the seaweed industry. Currently, the industry is in the development stage of testing offshore seaweed cultivation systems. Combining seaweed farming with wind farms is an excellent way to create shared benefits for two industries using the same marine resources.
The North Sea is one area where the development of wind parks is expanding, and there is clear potential in this region to help meet European renewable energy goals. One possibility suggests that 25% of the North Sea could be covered with wind turbines by 2050!
Considering this potential, there is an opportunity to combine wind parks with other activities to create multi-use areas with other industries, such as aquaculture or marine protected areas. Within a wind park, there is a lot of space, considering the distance of ~1km between wind turbines that can be utilized for these activities.
Currently, The Seaweed Company is involved in two multi-use projects combining wind parks and seaweed farming in the North Sea to test the potential of offshore seaweed farming:
United
United is a European Horizon 2020 project that began in January 2020 and will run until June 2023. The goal of this project is to demonstrate the viability of multi-use activities offshore with wind parks. The project operates on a test plot in the North Sea called the Offshore Test Site (OTS) that is facilitated by North Sea Farmers.
Through this project, the infrastructure to grow seaweed offshore is being tested by deploying fully-integrated cultivation systems. These systems are used for the full cycle of seaweed from seeding, growing, and harvesting.
At The Seaweed Company, this project began in January 2020 when we started designing our own cultivation systems. The structures were deployed that summer and in November 2020, seeded nets were deployed on the systems.
Together with our project partners we developed two systems: Cultivator01 and Cultivator02. We chose to develop two systems to test the effect of currents on seaweed growth. One system has been placed in line with currents, and the other is placed perpendicular with currents. By the end of this project, we can assess which deployment and cultivation strategy is more effective for seaweed growth, which can then be applied to future projects.
Another purpose of this project is to test different monitoring systems to develop a protocol for offshore monitoring utilizing cameras and GPS tracking. Our monitoring system allows us to check on our cultivation systems daily and constantly monitor the structures without needing to travel offshore.
So far with the United project, we have one full seaweed season behind us where our systems were able to remain intact through heavy storms, where waves reached 14m! As we are entering the second season, our next steps are to make some modifications and further validate the systems.
Wier & Wind
This year another opportunity for The Seaweed Company arose to participate in an additional project offshore with similar goals to United. This project, called Wier & Wind, where “Wier” is the Dutch word for seaweed, is an Interreg Europe Project which aims to establish large-scale seaweed cultivation farms between wind turbines off the Dutch/Belgian coast. This project began for TSC in 2021 and will run until next year, with the aim of piloting and validating offshore seaweed cultivation.
For this project, The Seaweed Company is working with a completely different cultivation system compared to the ones tested in the United project, and this system will be tested in the same Offshore Test Site. One of our goals for Wier & Wind is to integrate and build on knowledge from other industries, such as shellfish aquaculture, in the design of our cultivation systems.
The system was anchored using so called eco-anchors, a unique innovation where 7-meter piles are used as anchors to connect the seaweed growth structure. These piles have a frame on top where marine eco-systems can develop at the sea bed. This unique structure, which was installed only a couple weeks ago, therefore combines anchoring and artificial reef building.
Wier & Wind is an intensive cooperation between different project partners: Murre Technologies, GEOxyz, University of Ghent, HZ University of Applied Sciences, North Sea Farmers, and The Seaweed Company.
The Future of Offshore Activities with The Seaweed Company
Cultivating seaweed offshore is a long-term vision and goal at The Seaweed Company. Our cultivation systems have definite potential, but this strategy is still in its infancy stage and a lot still needs to be developed and validated before it can be a sustainable reality.
The process of developing the offshore wind industry took over 30 years. It started with a wind turbine on land, then moved offshore but still near the coast, and now these farms are located more than 30km off the coast in the North Sea. We expect the process of developing offshore seaweed farming to also take time, and it may come with additional challenges. One major challenge is cost. It is extremely expensive to do anything offshore due to the durability necessary to withstand the conditions of the sea. In addition, operational costs of crew and vessels are significant due to farms being 30–40km offshore. Considering seaweed farms would need visiting more often than wind turbines for activities such as seeding and harvesting, these operational costs are greater for seaweed farms.
The Seaweed Company wants to play a lead role in the development of offshore seaweed farms to meet the growing demand for seaweed, which is why we support these initiatives and are excited to be part of such innovative projects, like United and Wier & Wind. Perhaps the North Sea is not the best place to continue offshore operations and other oceans may be more feasible, but beginning the testing of innovative cultivation systems in the North Sea can help pave the way for the future of this industry.
As a final note on the future of offshore seaweed cultivation from The Seaweed Company’s SeaEO, Joost Wouters:
“When you are at sea, you realize how impressive and powerful the sea is. You cannot explain it with a picture. We need to be respectful of the sea and if we treat it with respect and work with nature, it might offer a tremendous partner for growing seaweed.”
About The Seaweed Company
The Seaweed Company was founded in 2018 and specializes in the development of high-value products for humans, animals, soils, and plants and in the cultivation of traceable seaweed species on a commercial scale. The Seaweed Company has its own seaweed production locations in Ireland, Morocco, India and The Netherlands and has developed products that contribute to sustainable agriculture. The Seaweed Company is actively involved with innovative research around applications in the medical field (Alzheimer’s and diabetes), functional food (alternative proteins), sustainable materials (natural composites) and sustainable seaweed cultivation methodologies. The Seaweed Company has a strong focus on Blue Farming, where we use the blue strength of the sea to support our land. Our TopHealth Plants product is an environmentally friendly alternative to fossil fuel-based fertilizers and pesticides.
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