WPNL 202101

Ecology
Sabine Lankhorst
Reefy
Ecological stepping stones
for offshore wind farms
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought uncertain times for many companies.
However, sometimes something good can come out of a crisis. In this case, it
brought together the partners in startup Reefy, the winner of the fourth edition of
the Offshore Wind Innovation Challenge.
Reefy started with two Mexican engineers, Jaime
Ascencio and Daniel Dacomba, who in 2017 so
happened to meet each other a day before their
departure to the Netherlands where they were both
going to study at the Technical University of Delft (TU Delft).
This was the start of a friendship.
Ascencio was a sales engineer who, back in Mexico, was selling
solutions to protect the coast and enhance marine life to resorts
and ports. He discovered, however, something was missing in the
solutions. Already then, he had the wish to develop a nature based
artificial reef and decided to study hydraulic engineering in Delft.
In 2019 he invited Dacomba to team up with him to explore the
potential of his idea. At the end of that same year they filed the
patent and incorporated Reefy in the Chamber of Commerce.
Bring the technique to the offshore wind
sector
In early 2020, they heard about the 2020 edition of the Offshore
Wind Innovation Challenge. Ascencio: “They were asking for what
we already had in mind, an artificial reef. However, up to then we
had only be thinking on coastal protection application, like break
waters, so we had to try to understand the client and bring this to
the offshore wind sector also.”
They started working on ideas but by the summer the two men
agreed that they, being both engineers, also needed someone with
both biology experience and a sense for business. So they posted a
vacancy on their social media. That’s when Leon Haines, a
follower of Reefy, got in touch with them. At that time he was
living in Indonesia where he had been working for some years in
coral reef reforestation and in the last two years founded a
conservation programme. Until COVID-19 made it impossible to
continue. He applied and returned to the Netherlands.
Ascencio and Dacomba were in the middle of the first round of
the Challenge. Ascencio: “I just finished my master so all of the
sudden we now had three full time employees. We made a lot of
progress since then.” They talked to many experts, ranging from
marine ecologists, rig divers and maritime archaeologists to
material experts and marine contractors, did experiments at
Deltares, and made improvements to their design. The first
meeting with the organisation of the Challenge took place in
‘Decommissioning is very
expensive, therefore, whether
you are green or not, this is a
wise economic option’
September. Reefy had offered a broad system. During the meeting
they were helped in narrowing down the focus and were given
suggestions to further work on.
Ecological stepping stones
The end result was a stable, hydrodynamically tested modular biodegradable
reef solution. A flexible system of interlocking ecoblocks,
in elongated shapes with cavities, provides a habitat
complexity of tunnels, courtyard environments and overhanging
sheltering environments from day one but evolves into a
flourishing biogeny reef over the course of just a few years.
“The hollow blocks are filled with a semi-hard substrate of
natural material like old oyster shells, gravel, and sand and are
pre-seeded with oyster larvae. The oysters will grow and produce
larvae themselves”, Haines explains, “When their larvae return to
the reef, it will start growing and become a natural reef again. The
blocks stay good long enough for this process to complete.”
38 | 01-2021