This autumn, the world's first commercial seaweed farm will open within the Hollandse Kust Zuid (HKZ) wind farm, located approximately 18 kilometers off the coast between The Hague and Zandvoort in the North Sea, according to North Sea Farmers's release.
North Sea Farm 1, created by North Sea Farmers with funding from Amazon's Right Now Climate Fund, is a floating farm situated among wind turbines where seaweed cultivation can be tested and improved. The site will also host scientific research on seaweed farms' potential for carbon sequestration.
By utilizing the previously unused space between turbines, the project aims to expand seaweed cultivation in the heavily used North Sea. There is ample room in current and future wind farms in the North Sea to scale production to 1 million tons of fresh seaweed per year by 2040, potentially sequestering and avoiding millions of tons of CO2.
The project, led by North Sea Farmers (NSF), is executed by a consortium of scientific researchers and partners from the seaweed industry. The seaweed farm is expected to be operational by the end of this year. The consortium hopes North Sea Farm 1 will serve as a replicable commercial model for offshore seaweed cultivation globally. Amazon's Investment Amazon has provided €1.5 million for the establishment of North Sea Farm 1 and a year of scientific research on CO2 reduction through seaweed cultivation.
North Sea Farmers (NSF) has been representing the European seaweed industry as a non-profit organisation since 2014. NSF leads this project to gather essential evidence for the sector. The consortium includes researchers from Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PLM), Deltares, and Silvestrum Climate Associates, seaweed extract manufacturer Algaia, project developer Simply Blue Group, and maritime contractors Van Oord and Doggerland Offshore.