‘Business case for mussel aquaculture in offshore wind farms in the North Sea’ is a paper from the MARIBE project with authors include BVGA’s Mike Blanch. Other authors are S.W.K. van den Burg (Wageningen Economic Research) , P. Kamermans (Wageningen Marine Research), D. Pletsas (Swansea University), M. Poelman (Wageningen Marine Research), K. Soma (Wageningen Economic Research) and G. Dalton (University College Cork).
The MARIBE project was part of the European Blue Growth strategy that aims to expand the new maritime sectors of aquaculture, energy, biotechnology, coastal tourism and mineral mining. Growth of these sectors will increases pressure on the seas, particularly on those areas that are densely used by traditional sectors such as fisheries and transport. This has triggered interest in developing multiuse of space and multiuse platforms at sea. This paper assesses the feasibility of offshore mussel production project in wind farms by design and ex-ante evaluation of a mussel aquaculture system in the North Sea. A system for mussel cultivation in the Dutch Borssele offshore wind farm was designed, producing both mussel seed and consumption-sized mussels with semi-submerged longlines. Based on the economic model and the risk assessment, this paper concludes that mussel aquaculture is an appealing commercial model for increased returns in offshore wind farms. The economic models shows that the internal rate of return and net present value are positive and based on the sensitivity analysis, it can be concluded that these results are robust.
The paper can be downloaded in full from the Science Direct.com website using this link: Business case for mussel aquaculture in offshore wind farms in the North Sea – payment may be required.
