SeaGrown’s novel seaweed cultivation system enhances biodiversity, contributes to carbon capturing and enables co-existence with other sea users
Cosma’s winning solution offers advanced habitat monitoring with underwater drones and AI-based data analysis, which enables high resolution, low-impact monitoring of marine biodiversity
RWE will fund studies to support the adaptation of these innovations to benefit offshore wind farms
Essen, 12 December 2024
RWE, one of the world leaders in offshore wind, has awarded the winners of its global “Co-use Competition”. The competition was launched with the aim of seeking innovative solutions in the fields of biodiversity enhancement and co-existence with other sea users. A panel of RWE experts evaluated a total of 77 applications from 17 countries and selected two winners after a thorough assessment of the potential of their proposals. The UK-based company SeaGrown and Cosma, based in France, have been selected as winners of the competition based on the potential value of their technologies and methods for RWE’s offshore wind portfolio.
The competition focused on two key areas: biodiversity enhancement and co-existence with other sea users. Cosma was awarded for its innovative biodiversity monitoring solution integrating underwater drones and new AI-based methodology for high-resolution seabed data analysis. SeaGrown was awarded for its innovative seaweed farming techniques, which combine co-existence of seaweed aquaculture with promising features for potential biodiversity enhancement.
Sven Utermöhlen, CEO RWE Offshore Wind: “As one of the world leaders in offshore wind we see sustainability and biodiversity enhancement as integral parts of the development, construction and operation of our wind farms. From a large number of high-quality applications, Cosma and SeaGrown emerged as the winners. With their innovative ideas and new technologies, they will help to create a positive impact on marine life and offer opportunities for local marine stakeholders. We strongly believe in working together to make a real difference for nature and future energy supplies.”
SeaGrown wins Innovation Ecology Award for promoting co-existence of marine space
British company SeaGrown is pioneering an innovative solution that utilises the offshore cultivation of sessile seaweed species, such as kelp, as a nature-based solution to increase marine biodiversity and help carbon and nitrogen uptake and oxygen release. This solution will aim to harness the regenerative power of seaweed to provide additional help in the fight against climate change and biodiversity loss. SeaGrown’s unique modular design minimises navigational risk and enables co-existence with other sea users, enabling the cultivation of North Sea native species all year-round in a dynamic offshore environment.
Cosma wins Innovation Ecology Award for advancing environmental monitoring
French company Cosma is developing an integrated solution for large-scale marine biodiversity monitoring: from time-effective, high-resolution data collection with its swarm of autonomous underwater drones to easily display and interrogate on the Cosma cloud platform. This time-saving survey methodology identifies benthic habitats by acquiring high-resolution 3D imagery over large acreage. With their innovative AI-assisted mapping and classification methodology, marine species can be identified and their condition can be monitored. The analysed data can help ocean users to make informed decisions. In addition, this innovation has the potential to identify obstacles and monitor benthic ecosystems at deeper and farther offshore sites with more autonomy and higher resolution than traditional protocols.
RWE funds studies to further develop the innovations
As a first step, the winners will receive funding from RWE to carry-out feasibility studies to further develop their innovations – with the aim to investigate how their solution could be deployed within offshore wind farms. The winning teams will work closely with RWE’s in-house experts, operational sites and project development teams to develop deliverable solutions that can be applied to RWE’s offshore wind projects to enhance sustainability.
RWE is one of the world’s leading players in the offshore wind sector and has more than 20 years of experience in the development, construction and efficient operation of offshore wind farms. The company operates 19 offshore wind farms and is currently constructing four new projects: the Sofia wind farm (1.4 gigawatts, GW) off the British coast, the Thor offshore wind farm (1.1 GW) in Denmark, the Nordseecluster (1.6 GW) north of the German island of Juist and together with TotalEnergies the OranjeWind offshore wind farm (795 megawatts) in the Netherlands.
