When wind turbines are installed in deep offshore waters, they have the potential to become support structures for artificial coral reefs. This has not been tested much yet, though.
Ørsted has launched its ReCoral technology in the Taiwan Strait as a pilot project. The project deployed coral colonies at a single site, mounting them on a custom aluminum frame placed within the boulder-rock scour-protection area.
Monitoring teams are tracking the coral gardens to figure out if the infrastructure can support threatened marine life indefinitely as ocean temperatures rise.
How offshore foundations function as artificial coral reefs
The coastal waters around Taiwan are shallow, which leaves them more open to thermal stress. This process bleaches coral reefs close to the shoreline. Further out, temperatures are more stable, and there are stronger currents that constantly mix and transport nutrients.
The aim of the ReCoral project is to test whether underwater steel foundations can become viable habitats for sensitive corals.
Surplus coral spawn that washed up on beaches was collected during natural mass spawning.
The attachment frames were designed to be non-invasive. The coral stock and seeding tiles were secured directly to the aluminum framework at the Greater Changhua wind farm. At a depth of 100 feet, sunlight is still able to penetrate the water while surface wave forces are avoided.
The seabed floor is not disturbed because the project uses existing infrastructure.
Dozens of vertical surfaces are now available as coral nursery sites within protected exclusion zones.
How compressed methodology works for subsea monitoring
To evaluate long-term survival, researchers monitor four distinct stony coral species attached to the turbine shafts: Acropora, Pocillopora, Porites, and Favites. High-definition cameras and acoustic sensors track structural stability, coral health, and local marine life.
Divers inspect the sites periodically to collect high-resolution imagery and tissue samples, measuring calcification rates and checking for disease or physical detachment.
Sensors mounted next to the coral frames measure environmental conditions around the clock, including water temperature, clarity, dissolved oxygen, and flow speed.
This sensor array also records acoustic vibrations emitted by operational wind turbines to determine whether low-frequency mechanical noise disrupts coral polyp expansion or settling behavior.
By pairing automated underwater sensors with manual diver checks, the project builds a continuous baseline dataset.
This tracking protocol isolates how environmental variables influence coral growth on steel, showing whether industrial offshore foundations can support delicate ecosystems without requiring constant, costly human maintenance work routines.
Initial discovery and ongoing site observation
In August 2025, the ReCoral proof-of-concept project successfully deployed approximately 2.9 square feet of corals across more than three species and age groups. Researchers are currently monitoring the offshore site to assess the corals’ adaptation, survival, and ongoing growth.
The ongoing trial is monitoring whether turbine operation and low-frequency mechanical vibrations impact coral polyp feeding and long-term skeletal growth, according to Ørsted.
Furthermore, these attached coral colonies attracted native reef fish and invertebrate larvae, turning the monopile bases into active deepsea micro-ecosystems.
The deep offshore site provided stable salinity and reduced sediment cover compared to degraded nearshore reefs, helping transplanted juvenile corals achieve higher survival rates throughout the project’s early monitoring efforts.
However, long-term survival remains contingent on extreme weather events, including typhoon-driven wave forces, heavy subsea currents, and seasonal water temperature shifts across the Taiwan Strait.
Wind turbines can host deepsea coral colonies
While initial trial data confirms that offshore wind foundations can host living coral colonies at depth, scaling this modular restoration approach requires multi-year testing across varying regional oceanographic conditions.
Ørsted‘s 2025 annual report says that the ReCoral pilot demonstrates that steel energy infrastructure can double as functional marine habitat, offering a highly localized, scalable biodiversity enhancement strategy specifically tailored for commercial tropical offshore wind energy production farms.
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