Advancing multi-use in offshore wind farms
Roadmap for the Dutch North Sea
The North Sea is playing a major role in transitioning towards a more sustainable European economy. However, available space is limited. Offshore wind farm areas are competing for space with traditional fisheries, different types of food production at sea, future renewable energy infrastructure, as well as hydrogen production.
Today, the Road2SID project delivered a Roadmap for technological advancements needed for Symbiosis-Inclusive Design in Offshore Wind. The roadmap summarises available knowledge, identifies stakeholder perspectives and finally proposes actions for advancing multi-use in offshore wind farms.
Stakeholder perspectives
Symbiosis-Inclusive design of offshore wind farms will involve many stakeholders, whose interests need to be aligned. Therefore, we have asked various stakeholders about their perspectives on advancing symbiosis between offshore wind farms and multi-use activities that fall under the three main transitions in the North Sea: Nature, Food and Energy. We collected and present their feedback on opportunities they see, challenges they face, and responsibilities they feel.
Key actions to advance symbiosis towards 2030
Based on the literature review and stakeholder consultation, the opportunities, risks, and challenges are defined. For three types of multi-use activities in wind farms (ecosystem protection and strengthening, food production and alternative renewable energy generation, conversion and storage) specific actions are defined that have the potential to accelerate the development of multi-use offshore wind farms and bring the three types further towards integration with offshore wind farms.

Case studies to explore symbiosis from the past towards the far future
Three case studies are conducted to explore the proposed actions for different timelines: past, present and future:
- Experiences from symbiosis in Borssele This case study investigates how various parties involved in multi-use are looking at the Borssele wind farm site (designated by the government as a multi-use hub) for setting up a multi-use business case for wave and solar energy production, food production and nature restoration activities. What has stopped them so far and what developments do they need in the future?
- Making information systems symbiotic In this case study, a holistic Open Information System (OIS) is envisaged to enhance symbiosis and multi-use activities. The goal of the OIS is to make present and upcoming multi-use operations more efficient, economically viable and safe by proper sharing of relevant information between various users at sea.
- Integrated vision for symbiosis in 2050 With this case study, a fully symbiotic offshore wind production grid is envisioned for the far future, involving multi-use activities across all three North Sea transition themes (Nature, Energy, Food). To establish this vision, we propose an integrated toolbox of moonshots towards fully symbiotic offshore wind farms. The goal is to achieve full integration and maturity of multi-use activities in offshore wind farms in a way that sustainability goals in energy and food production are realised and the carrying capacity of the ecosystem is respected.