Van Oord

Van Oord supported environmental enhancement activities inside the Eneco Luchterduinen offshore wind farm in collaboration with Eneco and The Rich North Sea programme. Building on lessons from early oyster restoration trials started in 2018, Van Oord contributed marine engineering capability and offshore field experience to improve the design and survivability of habitat enhancement structures deployed on the seabed. Within this collaboration, Van Oord developed and refined the “oyster table” structures used to elevate oysters above sandy seabed conditions, reducing burial risk and improving access to water flow. The company used feedback from multiple offshore missions and monitoring results to iterate the design, aiming to create a robust, low-maintenance approach that mimics natural oyster-bed formation and provides habitat benefits for other marine species. Van Oord’s role included design development of the physical structures and supporting offshore deployment and field missions at sea, with installations reported as being placed within the wind farm in 2022. The work formed part of wider efforts to integrate biodiversity and restoration considerations into offshore wind operations and to generate transferable knowledge for other projects in the Dutch North Sea.