Beneath offshore wind turbines, researchers grow seafood and seaweed

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Researchers are exploring multiple uses for wind parks far out at sea, such as producing fresh seafood

KRIEGERS FLAK OFFSHORE WIND FARM, Denmark — In a small boat bobbing in the waves between towering offshore wind turbines, researchers in Europe’s Baltic Sea reach into the frigid water and remove long lines stretched between the pylons onto which mussels and seaweed are growing.

It’s part of efforts to explore multiple uses for remote wind parks far out at sea, such as fresh seafood production.

Run by the Swedish state-owned power firm Vattenfall and Denmark’s Aarhus University, the four-year project started in 2023 off the Danish east coast at Scandinavia’s largest wind farm, Kriegers Flak. With its first harvest just 18 months later, it's already showing signs of early success.

“There’s an increasing competition for space on land and in the sea," said Aarhus University senior scientist Annette Bruhn, who leads the project. “We can, in one area, produce both fossil-free energy and food for a growing population.”

With a capacity of over 600 megawatts, Kriegers Flak can power up to 600,000 households. Its 72 turbines deliver clean energy to nearby Denmark and Germany to the south.

But researchers saw other potential within the park’s 132 square-kilometer (51 square-mile) area.

The water between its spinning blades has been transformed into an experimental underwater seafood farm.

Four hundred-meter (328-foot) lines spread between the turbines grow seaweed and mussel crops. The seaweed was recently harvested for the first time.

“Seaweed and mussels are low trophic aquaculture crops, which means that they can be produced without the use of fertilizers. They take up nutrients from the sea and produce healthy foods,” Bruhn