Freja Offshore, a joint venture between Hexicon and Mainstream Renewable Power, has entered into a collaboration with the Norwegian company Subfarm to enable fish farms inside the Mareld floating offshore wind farm, proposed to be built in the North Sea, off the coast of Lysekil in Sweden.
The two companies will work together on a project that will take a closer look at how electricity production and fisheries can be combined, according to Freja Offshore, which submitted a planning application under the Swedish Economic Zone Act (SEZ) for the 2.5 GW floating wind farm last year.
Lysekil Municipality, the research institute DHI and the Norwegian industrial cluster Blue Maritime Cluster are also participating in the new collaborative project that aims to develop the possibility of running sustainable fish farms within the Mareld offshore wind farm site.
Freja Offshore says that previous studies show that offshore wind farms can act as artificial reefs and marine protected areas, which increases the amount of fish and shellfish. While larger fishing vessels cannot pass through the wind farm, there are good opportunities for fish farming, the developer says.
At the Marled offshore wind farm, the fish farms are planned to be placed between the wind turbine foundations and anchored with their own anchoring system. The fish cages will be lowered to a depth of 50–70 metres and hoisted up to the surface for checks and harvesting.
Subfarm, which has been working since 2018 on solutions that enable sustainable fish farming, has developed the technology that can withstand tough weather conditions in the North Sea and is based on methods previously used in the oil and gas industry for decades. The entire system is controlled from a control station on land, Freja Offshore says.