The wind turbine manufacturers said it would fix a custom-made “cage” to the steel foundations of turbines at the 500MW Qingzhou 4 offshore wind farm currently under construction in the South China Sea.
In a statement MingYang said it had begun building a “jacket foundation and net cage” system that will be attached to the MySE 11.0-230 turbines currently planned for the site, around 62km off the coast of Yangjiang, Guangdong, China.
The company claims this device can combine a typhoon-resistant offshore turbine with a deep sea fishery.
It aims to raise some 15,000 fish within 5,000 cubic metres of water at the wind farm using the system. MingYang also pointed out that fish farmed so far from shore would also be less impacted by near shore pollution and suggested they would be available as food in the future:
“The high-quality fish raised in this system are comparable to wild fish and are less impacted by nearshore marine pollution.” The company said.
MingYang is joining other wind energy developers also working to use offshore wind turbines for multiple purposes to improve their sustainability.
Ørsted installed 3D-printed reefs on its turbines at the 400MW Anholt wind farm off the Danish coast in an effort to boost biodiversity in the area.
The Danish company announced in 2022 that it was growing coral directly on the foundations of turbines at the 605MW Greater Changhua 1 offshore wind farm in Taiwan.
Swedish energy company Vattenfall meanwhile partnered with an academic study currently attempting to grow seafood including seaweed and mussels on cables at the 604MW Kriegers Flak offshore wind farm in Denmark.
