How Offshore Wind Farms Are Helping Reef Systems Thrive

By Alyson Lundstrom

March, 2023

Originally published for the ZeroME corporate sustainability app

Photo: The Nature Conservancy

We’ve heard with helpless dread about the accelerated decline of major reef systems over the past decade. Even one of the Seven Wonders of the World, the Great Barrier Reef, has not been able to recover fully from recent decades of climate change-inflicted bleaching events. It’s time to look at the breeze; perhaps offshore wind farms can provide the answer.

Coral reefs are home to more than a third of all marine fish species. Additionally, more than a quarter of all marine species that don’t use them as a primary home use them as nursery grounds. However, corals and the reef environments they are part of are at risk because of the impact of climate change. Tropical wind farms may be the solution to create safe havens where corals can potentially recover and thrive.

Offshore wind farms (OWFs) are proliferating globally. The submerged parts of their structures act as artificial reefs, providing new habitats and likely affecting fisheries resources. Photo: The Oceanography Society

What Are Offshore Wind Farms

There’s a reason we wish sailors “fair winds” on their journey- because it gets gusty out there! Harnessing this free and abundant resource, the wind has primarily been developed to help alleviate our fossil fuel dependence.

Offshore wind power or energy is the energy harnessed from the force of the winds out at sea. It is then transformed into electricity and pumped into an electricity grid network onshore.

The American Geosciences Institute touts wind energy for its ability to create renewable energy, provide a sustainable energy source, and do so while not creating environmental pollutants or greenhouse gasses.

Despite initial disturbance, operating wind farms are capable of supporting many organisms. Benthic communities and aquatic vegetation have found the large substrates around the monopiles to be particularly useful as sites for colonization. Photo Credit: Chesapeake Climate Action Network

How Can Wind Farms Can Aid Reef Recovery

For many years, we have known about the net positive effects of wind farms as a renewable energy source, but we now know they can help foster healthy reef environments as well.

As a function of stability, wind turbines must be anchored in shallow enough water to create a foundation. These wind turbine foundations have become popular spots for spawning corals to create new homes. Renewable wind energy companies, like Danish company Ørsted, are now encouraging the secondary benefit by purposefully planting larvae on their foundations through their ReCoral program.

The potential to have a positive impact on biodiversity has limitless applications. While corals thrive in tropical waters, the cooler water wind turbines have become home to algae and mussels in places like the east coast of the United States.

It’s not only about what is growing on the foundations but also what they attract.

Schools of fish like mahi, sea bass, and bait fish have been known to school around the structures.

Charybdis will first be deployed out of New London harbor to support the construction of Revolution Wind and Sunrise Wind, which will serve nearly 1 million homes in Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New York. Photo: Dominion Energy

Real Time Positive Change

One wind farm operator, Dominion Energy, was able to see the accumulation of biodiversity in real time off the coast of Virginia. Because every company must first do an environmental impact assessment of the area, the company set up cameras recording changes on the foundation every six months.

During this time, they were able to monitor a video feed that showed species of animals settling in - some who wouldn’t typically settle that far out to sea, but because the foundation offered safe harbor, they were able to make a home. Soon, mussels settled, attracting even more fish, including black sea bass, tautog, and spadefish. Finally, an artificial reef, buoyed by the foundation that the turbine offered, began to flourish.

The bottom line is that while wind farms still need to negate their physical footprint in the ocean, their net positive effect on marine life and renewable energy may just be a win-win for the environment as a whole.