Launch the first seaweed farm in an offshore wind farm

Many of current production sites are still located in Asia. In Europe, there is hardly any seaweed production, despite the global demand growing sharply. North Sea Farmers (NSF) is a European sector organisation for the seaweed industry. Together with a number of pioneering members, they aim to build the first seaweed farm in a Dutch offshore wind farm, called NSF#1.

Design standard enables scaling of offshore seaweed production for startups

The North Sea is heavily congested. The unused space between wind farms therefore seems like a good location for setting up seaweed farms. Although various seaweed production systems have already been tested in the sector, obtaining a permit for a seaweed farm in a wind farm proves difficult.

The main reason for this is the lack of a suitable design standard that ensures a seaweed farm is safe and does not pose unnecessary risks to the wind farm and other users. Together with NSF, Invest-NL has developed a design standard that can form the basis of a permit application for all (future) seaweed startups in the Netherlands and Europe.

Seaweed: an important driver of sustainable food production

Enabling the transition to a carbon-neutral economy is Invest-NL's top priority. Making the sustainability of food production more sustainable by replacing animal proteins with natural proteins plays a significant role in this. It requires innovation, entrepreneurship, and active involvement from many different parties both within and outside the existing food chains. To accelerate this protein transition, Invest-NL has already financed and/or made several companies and projects fundable.

Pioneers increasingly focus on sustainable multi-use innovations

As the sustainability efforts in the Netherlands accelerate rapidly around us, the understanding grows that effective use of limited space is crucial. Innovative companies and entrepreneurs are therefore looking for applications that combine sustainable solutions. A good example is ‘wind at sea’. While wind turbines were until recently standalone objects, nowadays they are combined with, for example, floating solar energy fields, energy storage systems, and now also seaweed production. Since there is currently no reference framework for offshore seaweed production, it is regarded as risky, which complicates scaling and financing.

(Read more about what we do for the energy transition)

The new design standard outlines the framework for designing safe and robust seaweed farms in wind farms. The standard is intended as a guide for the industry, provides insight into the technical criteria for designing an offshore or nearshore seaweed cultivation system, and helps in obtaining permits for these systems. By streamlining successful permit applications, assets can be insured, increasing the likelihood of attracting investments successfully.

Where Invest-NL makes a difference in this case

Invest-NL can assist entrepreneurs in hiring external experts to address important technical, legal, and/or market questions. However, the insights and/or products developed must be accessible to everyone in the market. By using the design standard that allows seaweed startups to better understand permit applications and to insure assets, they increase the likelihood of successfully attracting investments.