Amazon to fund world-first commercial-scale seaweed farm in an offshore windfarm

The project, known as North Sea Farm 1, will be located in a windfarm off the coast of the Netherlands. It has been designed to test and improve methods of seaweed farming while researching seaweed’s potential to sequester carbon, the process of capturing, removing and storing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the earth’s atmosphere.

By locating the farm in previously empty space between turbines, the project is able to expand seaweed cultivation in the otherwise heavily used North Sea.

Amazon states that if seaweed farming were to expand to occupy the entire space occupied by windfarms – expected to be approximately 1M hectares by 2040 – it could sequester millions of tonnes of CO2 annually.

The project is managed by a consortium of researchers and partners from the seaweed industry, led by non-profit organisation North Sea Farmers, and is expected to become operational by the end of 2023.

The consortium hopes North Sea Farm 1 will evolve into a blueprint for offshore seaweed farming the world over.

Amazon is granting €1.5M (US$1.6M) to the project to enable a year of scientific research into carbon reduction through seaweed farming. The funding comes from its US$100M Right Now Climate Fund.

The grant will provide the money required to construct a 10-hectare seaweed farm, which is expected to produce at least 6,000 kg of fresh seaweed in its first year.

The funding will also support North Sea Farmers in analysing and improving the farm’s production capabilities. At the same time, researchers will explore the potential of seaweed farms to remove carbon from the atmosphere, modelling the impacts of large-scale seaweed farming.