Seaweed will be harvested from Kriegers Flak offshore wind farm off Denmark for the first time this spring.
The Vattenfall-owned offshore wind farm in the Baltic Sea is supporting a number of environmental initiatives.
In addition to seaweed harvesting, teams will be setting lines for growing mussels and making an in-depth assessment of cod stocks in and around the wind farm area.
The activities form part of the WIN@sea project, in which a number of Danish universities and companies are exploring how best to produce fossil-free energy and food in one and the same location and at the same time improve the marine environment and area biodiversity.
“It’s going to an exciting year for us.
“One of the big milestones will be our initial harvest of seaweed for food production from the offshore wind farm in late spring.
“We are working to produce both fossil-free energy and sustainable food from the sea in the same place whilst providing data for environmental monitoring at the.
“At the same time, we are documenting effects on the marine environment and biodiversity”, said WIN@sea Senior Researcher & Project Leader Annette Bruhn from the Department of Ecoscience, Aarhus University.
While production of seaweed and mussels shall take place in the areas between the wind turbines, there is also a particular focus on the areas surrounding the turbine foundations on the seabed.
Rocks are placed on the seabed to protect the turbine foundations and act as artificial stone reefs.
The researchers from WIN@sea will be investigate what effects the man-made reefs have on the area’s biodiversity, including the cod stocks.
Once the first seaweed from Kriegers Flak is harvested in the spring, its quality as a foodstuff will undergo analysis.
Afterwards, the seaweed will be used to make seaweed pasta and other foods at WIN@sea’s family cooking school.
WIN@sea is a collaborative project between Aarhus University, the Danish Technological University, the University of Copenhagen, the seaweed and mussel producer Kerteminde Seafarm, the Kattegat Centre and the energy company Vattenfall.