Looking for opportunities to situate two different industries together at sea is currently in the spotlight. Placing mariculture inside offshore wind farms is a recently emerging industry, that holds a lot of potential for the blue economy.
What is mariculture?
Mariculture is the farming of marine species at sea. It is a rapidly expanding industry worldwide. The need to farm fish is growing as wild fish stocks continue to be fished to their maximum level. More sustainable fishing methods are being sort and the environmental benefits that mariculture can provide are being recognised.
Why co-locate inside wind farms?
Situating two different offshore industries together can provide a number of benefits. A large increase in offshore renewable energy developments is expected as the push to produce the majority of energy from sustainable sources increases. Once a development has been built offshore, other activities, like fishing, can no longer take place there. This means that our available offshore marine space is quickly getting filled up for different purposes. Co-locating mariculture developments inside offshore wind farms would be a good use of marine space for compatible industries, helping to save other areas of the sea for fishing, recreational and conservation purposes.
Mariculture co-location in the Tees Estuary
We are currently undertaking a study to determine the feasibility of co-locating mariculture inside the Teesside Inshore Wind Farm. The main aims of this study are to work out what marine species could be grown inside the wind farm, how they would need to be grown and what benefits growing these species could provide to the estuary. Successfully situating mariculture in the wind farm could help improve the health of the estuary. It is well known that growing seaweed and certain shellfish species could improve water quality, increase marine biodiversity and can capture carbon in that area, whilst growing a fish resource. We hope to demonstrate how mariculture can effectively be co-located inside a wind farm and how it could improve the marine environment to encourage similar schemes elsewhere.
Keep checking for updates to see how this project progresses!