The UNITED activities will include a review of the State-of-the-Art of ocean multi-use and the development of Roadmaps for five real-life demonstration pilots.

Find out how UNITED will enhance the viability of ocean multi-use and address current challenges across five key pillars:

• Technological pillar
• Economic pillar
• Environmental pillar
• Societal pillar
• Legal, policy and governance pillar

Elaboration on the five pillars will be followed by the Implementation Phase and the Assessment and Validation Phase. 

The UNITED activities will be based in five real-life ocean multi-use pilot sites, where different combinations of activities are already being carried out or are currently at the implementation stage:

• German pilot – offshore wind farm, cultivation of blue mussels and seaweed
• Dutch pilot – offshore wind farm, floating solar and seaweed cultivation
• Belgian pilot – offshore wind farm, cultivation of flat oysters and seaweed, and restoration of oyster ecosystems
• Danish pilot – offshore wind farm and visits to wind turbines (tourists, technicians from the sectors, etc.)
• Greek pilot – aquaculture (fisheries) and leisure scuba diving.

The five UNITED pilot will host different combinations of maritime activities belonging to a wide array of Blue Economy sectors:

• Renewable energy – offshore wind farms and floating solar sytems
• Aquaculture – Blue mussels, flat oysters and fisheries
• Bio-resources – including seaweed
• Tourism – including recreational and educational visits to wind turbines and diving
• Maritime transport – including leisure boat tours and maritime traffic related to expanding marine wind parks

The five UNITED pilots are located in three European seas, to best represent the diversity of operating conditions:

• Baltic Sea
• North Sea
• Mediterranean Sea

The technologies researched and implemented by UNITED will be tested near-shore before implementation offshore and will thus include research of both more subdued conditions near-shore as well as more critical conditions offshore.

The UNITED activities will bring technology in the five pilots across three Technology Readiness Levels (TRL) with the aim of bringing the demonstration pilots to TRL7, showcasing the operations of ocean multi-use and co-location for 1-2 years:

• TRL5: Technology validated in relevant environment
• TRL6: Technology demonstrated in relevant environment
• TRL7: System prototype demonstration in operational environment

UNITED will elaborate on the five pillars offering solutions to each pilot, which will then be implemented in three phases:

• Pre-operational phase: activities related to systems, material development and pre-testing; capacity building for offshore deployment; and installation and prefabrication for real-life ocean multi-use deployment.
• Operational phase: the ocean multi-use elements will be assembled together on-site. All activities planned for the pilot sites, including technological developments, active site work and monitoring systems, will be realised at the pilots.
• Post-operational phase: the features added during the previous phases will have to be removed from the site (if applicable) in a decommissioning phase.

The acronym MUSICA stands for Multiple Use of Space for Island Clean Autonomy. The project will run from 2020 to 2025 and is currently developing a one-stop solution in a Multi-Use Platform, which will produce electricity and fresh water using renewable power from the wind and waves. Find out more on the MUSICA project website.