Campus@Sea is delighted to announce that ‘Fieldlab Campus@Sea 2.0’ has received a grant of €800,000 from Kansen voor West, financed by the ERDF programme. This substantial investment is a tremendous boost for our initiative, enabling us to test, demonstrate and validate offshore energy innovations under real-life conditions for application in the North Sea.
With the realisation of an offshore test bed and the connection to the national electricity grid, we are taking a huge step forward in the development of sustainable energy. It is crucial that state-of-the-art test facilities become available for innovations in the Dutch North Sea in order to accelerate the market introduction of new offshore technologies. The energy, food and climate transition in the Netherlands will greatly benefit from the application of such innovations.
The North Sea is not only the busiest sea in the world, but also a valuable and vulnerable ecosystem. It is an important source of food and has great economic and social significance. The North Sea Agreement, concluded in June 2020, underlines the need for a healthy and sustainable North Sea. The agreements in this agreement focus on the energy, food and climate transition until 2030.
In addition to traditional functions such as shipping, fishing and oil and gas extraction, the North Sea also offers great potential for offshore renewable energy (wind, solar, wave and tidal), aquaculture (seaweed and shellfish farming) and zero-emission shipping. The restoration of marine biodiversity is an essential prerequisite for all these applications. The development of multifunctional wind farms also offers good opportunities for optimising the use of space at sea.
Campus@Sea plays a key role in promoting offshore innovations by offering test facilities. North Sea Farmers’ current Offshore Test Site Scheveningen (OTS SCH) partially meets the requirements of offshore technology developers. However, the addition of a power grid connection is essential to provide developers of renewable offshore energy with the necessary test facilities.
Thanks to the subsidy from Kansen voor West, this grid connection between the Q13a platform and the OTS SCH can be realised. This strengthens the unique innovation space off the coast of Scheveningen and enables technology developers to test and validate their innovations under realistic conditions.
Campus@Sea will take ownership of the grid connection. This expansion of the OTS SCH makes it possible to offer new service concepts, such as advice and data collection via remote sensing and real-time monitoring of offshore technologies.
The expansion of the Offshore Test Site with a grid connection is not only of technical importance, but also strengthens The Hague’s position as an attractive location for companies in the Blue Economy. Campus@Sea will contribute to the growth of the innovation ecosystem in the region and the development of new technologies that accelerate the energy, food and climate transition.
Together with partners such as North Sea Farmers, ENI/Neptune Energy, Oceans of Energy, SolarDuck, WECO, SlowMill, Dutch Wave Power and many others, Campus@Sea is committed to a sustainable future in which the North Sea is optimally utilised for innovative and sustainable applications.
🌊 Together we are building a sustainable future on the North Sea! 🌊
Campus@Sea
Hellingweg 9c
2583 DZ DEN HAAG
info@campusatsea.nl