Amazon.com has granted 1.5 million euros ($1.6 million) to a Dutch project testing the viability of commercially growing seaweed in between turbines of offshore wind farms, the company and organizers said on Thursday.
The project, led by the non-profit group North Sea Farmers, will also research the potential of using seaweed for carbon capture.
Hundreds of thousands of hectares (acres) of the Dutch North Sea have been earmarked for wind parks as the government seeks to build 21 gigawatts of offshore wind power by 2030 and will be closed for shipping.
The spaces between the turbines will be mostly unused.
Other projects are looking at the feasibility of operating floating solar panels between the turbines.
The Amazon grant will be used to build a 10-hectare seaweed farm, called North Sea Farm 1, which organizers said would be finished by the end of 2023 and would produce about 6,000 kg of fresh seaweed annually.
($1 = 0.9339 euros)
(Reuters - Reporting by Toby Sterling; Editing by Edmund Blair)