About us

ILVO is specialised in measuring and evaluating impacts of human activities on the North Sea ecosystem. This is done by assessing biodiversity, by studying emissions of organic and inorganic contaminants as well as plastics and by advising on marine spatial planning. ILVO is involved in different long-term monitoring projects, such as the impact assessment of offshore wind farms, dredge disposal or sand extraction, and many short-term projects on this topic. As these activities directly link to ecosystem management at national and international scales, ILVO has strong links with policy, especially related to EU MSFD and OSPAR.

ILVO will coordinate the Anemoi project. Through its role as coordinator, ILVO will be responsible for project management, including scientific and financial reporting, and for project communication and dissemination. ILVO will also have a major role in stakeholder engagement, supporting project partners SINTEF and POM West-Vlaanderen.

ILVO will actively contribute to the sampling at OWFs (WP2), sample division and transport (WP2), the determination of target organic contaminants from OWFs chemical emissions (WP2) and the non-target screening and assessment of new contaminants of emerging concern (WP2). ILVO will take a leading role in WP3, together with University Antwerp, mainly in leading the on-field exposure pilot study at the Belgian Part of the North Sea, including the design of the study as well as the measurements of organic chemicals and paint flakes.

POM West Flanders (POM-WVL) is a regional development agency in Belgium developing a sustainable and innovative economy in West Flanders by promoting partnerships between industry & SMEs, knowledge institutions, the public sector and the general public (in a quadruple-helix approach). Five cluster policies are being implemented, in alignment with regional, national and European strategies. One of these covers the Blue Energy sector, comprising of offshore clean energy, green hydrogen and a range of hybrid solutions (multi-use and multi-source applications in a marine environment), and materials development and innovation for offshore applications.

POM-WVL is an active partner in the Anemoi project and contributes with the its competences and experience in innovation acceleration, facilitating clean offshore energy development and making available an advanced offshore test facility. Another important activity is to deepen the engagement with the broader sectors in the blue economy, such as the fishery, the ports, transport, coastal communities and tourism.

POM-WVL contributes specifically in the following activities: Make biological effect testing and analyses possible at the test facility Blue Accelerator and further offshore in the North Sea; facilitate in the stakeholder participation processes; and disseminate the project recommendations in different offshore energy sectors. With these activities POM-WVL expects to benefit via the co-development and application of the recommendations and to reach out to a wider network in the blue economy. Gaining deep knowledge and experience from this project helps POM-WVL to further strengthen the innovation landscape in offshore clean energy.

SINTEF Ocean, located in Norway, conducts research and innovation related to ocean space for national and international industries. SINTEF Ocean’s ambition is to continue Norway's leading position in marine technology and biomarine research. Many of the challenges of modern society can be solved through sustainable use of the ocean. Transport, food and energy production represent the backbone of ocean-based industries, and are also core areas for SINTEF Ocean. In addition, we focus on environmental technology, with one of the world’s leading professional environments in marine environmental technology. Through cooperation in the SINTEF group, we are also able to integrate our own expertise with expert technological knowledge from other industry sectors. 

In the ANEMOI project, SINTEF Ocean helps to design workshops and meetings that facilitate a sharing of knowledge between project partners and project stakeholders, who work in various capacities with chemical emissions from offshore wind farms.  SINTEF also contributes to WP2 of ANEMOI with non-target organic chemical analysis and characterisation of seawater leachates produced from a range of OWF infrastructure coatings.  

NIOZ, the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, is the national oceanographic institute and the Netherlands’ centre of expertise for ocean, sea and coast. We advance fundamental understanding of marine systems, the way they change, the role they play in climate and biodiversity, and how they may provide sustainable solutions to society in the future.

NIOZ participates in WP3 (Effects of chemical contaminants) with lab experiments to investigate ecotoxicological effects on marine organisms (in particular mussels) such as effects on metabolism, endurance and physiological condition. NIOZ will also implement these effects in a numerical biogeochemical ecosystem model to perform scenario studies to estimate potential exposure levels on filter-feeding organisms and secondary effects on the wider ecosystem induced by the resulting changes in filter feeder performance.

French leading institute in research, innovation and scientific policy support in marine science. The specific competencies gathered in IFREMER’s Research Unit on Chemical Contamination of the Marine Ecosystems (CCEM) are particularly relevant for the project. Some examples are the work on chemical contaminant (i.e. organic contaminants) dynamics in the marine environment and their transfer towards and into marine organisms and biological effects. These activities involve the development and implementation of trace/ultra-trace level analytical methods for contaminant quantification in key environmental compartments (e.g. sediment, water, organisms), the identification and quantification of spatial-temporal trends of chemical contamination and the study of bioaccumulation and biotransformation processes.  IFREMER implication and work in ANEMOI will be done through CCEM Research Unit, as co-leader of WP2 (Mapping of chemical emissions). Involvement in WP3 (effects of chemical contaminants) is also foreseen.

BSH is the central maritime authority in Germany supporting the blue economy, promoting the sustainable use of the ocean and observing the state of the seas. Services include forecasting currents and tides, water levels and storm surges, as well as observing sea ice, various pollutants and underwater noise, the state of sediments and the effects of climate change. Among others, BSH operates the marine environmental monitoring network MARNET in the German Bight and the western Baltic Sea and is responsible for maritime spatial planning and for authorising the construction of offshore wind farms (OWFs), cables and pipelines within the German exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Hereby, a major goal is to work towards “zero emissions” in this spatial area.

Based on data derived from long-term monitoring, BSH has generated a huge data set on current concentrations of contaminants within the German EEZ and coastal areas. To gain more information on potential chemical emissions from corrosion protection systems of OWFs, BSH initiated the OffChEm I & II project in collaboration with the Helmholtz-Zentrum hereon in 2017. In these projects, suitable sampling strategies and analytical methods to determine chemical emissions from corrosion protection were developed, inorganic (harmful) substances were identified and their relevant influence on the local and regional marine environment was evaluated.

Within the Anemoi project, BSH has the lead for WP1 due to its experience on chemical emissions from OWFs as part of the issuing process in Germany. In collaboration with partners and national agencies, an overview on regulations with respect to chemical emissions from OWFs and a proposal for harmonization will be developed. In WP2, all sampling campaigns in the German North Sea will be conducted as part of the regular monitoring campaigns on BSH vessels. Furthermore, BSH is working in close collaboration with hereon and RBINS concerning the analysis of paint/coating particles in water and sediment. BSH will quantify particles in sediment samples using a Pyrolysis GC/MS approach. As part of WP1 and WP4, BSH will also support the collaboration with several stakeholders by holding one of the workshops and by taking on an advisory role.

Technische Universität Braunschweig and its entity Leichtweiß-Institute for Hydraulic Engineering and Water Resources (LWI) have a longstanding research interest in offshore renewables. This is demonstrated through the joint operation of the Coastal Research Center in Hannover, Germany where engineering-focussed research on offshore renewables is a focal point. TU BS is also involved in research on energy storage, e.g. through low-head pumped storage applications along coastlines and in the ocean.

LWI of TU BS joins the consortium as an academic partner that brings expertise in engineering-focused assessment of fluid-structure interaction and associated processes in marine contexts. In Anemoi, we conduct numerical simulations to enhance the understanding of distribution processes of solute and solid chemical components in the marine realm. A second activity looks at the detachment, sinking and mixing processes of paint flakes in the vicinity of offshore wind structures.