Van Oord and partners kicked off a project today that aims to boost the growth of oyster beds and other biodiversity at Eneco’s Luchterduinen offshore wind farm off the coast of the Netherlands.
The Dutch company, which is partnering with the North Sea Foundation, the Natuur & Milieu organisation and Eneco, installed reef balls and cages containing flat oysters at the project 23km off the coast from the city of IJmuiden.
Van Oord installation vessel Ham 602 took the reef structures out from IJmuiden and positioned them at a depth of approximately 20 metres within the wind farm site.
The artificial reef covers a total area of three hectares and will be monitored until 2022 by Waardenburg Consultants, SAS Consultancy and Wageningen Marine Research.
The aim is to determine whether the oysters grow and reproduce sufficiently, and whether their larvae establish themselves in the vicinity and form a reef, Van Oord said.
Project partners will also investigate the optimum underwater conditions to enable nature to thrive within offshore wind farms.
Van Ord said the demo aims to provide a blueprint for underwater nature restoration at all offshore wind farms which can be applied when constructing new installations.