Seaweed Cultivators Go ‘Climate Positive’

GOULDSBORO — Springtide Seaweed LLC is preparing to pilot a solar project — the installation of a solar-powered nursery that would make the aquaculture company “climate positive,” according to its founder, Sarah Redmond.

The endeavor comes as over $200,000 in grant funding was recently awarded by Island Institute to local companies, municipalities and organizations — several of which are in Hancock County — for 56 projects that enhance climate resilience, economic opportunities and innovation along the coast.

“This year’s awards reflect the grit, ingenuity, and determination of people who live and work in Maine’s island and coastal communities,” reads a September press release from Island Institute.

Springtide Seaweed was awarded $4,000 from the organization’s Spark Grant, which will cover about half the cost of installing the solar infrastructure, Redmond told the Islander.

Over $200,000 in grant funding was recently awarded by Island Institute to local companies, municipalities and organizations […] for 56 projects that enhance climate resilience, economic opportunities and innovation along the coast.

The aquaculture company, which cultivates organic seaweed in the country’s largest seaweed nursery and operates the only commercial green urchin hatchery in the United States, according to its website, is seeking to further limit its carbon footprint.

This project will even make the company “climate positive,” explained Redmond.

Around the same time, I had become aware of the Island Institute’s Spark Grant, which offers energy efficiency support to working waterfront businesses and communities, and the grant was a perfect fit for our project.”

“By adding solar power to our nursery facility, our operation becomes carbon negative, or climate positive, which means that we will be pulling more inorganic carbon out of the environment than we will be emitting,” she said. “As a certified organic farm, we strive to work with, and contribute to, our natural ecological systems, and we’re excited to add the power of solar to our electrical needs. The addition of a solar array adds the power of the sun to our entire process: seed production, photosynthesis on the ocean farm and solar drying.”

To make that happen, Springtide Seaweed is working with Sundog Solar out of Searsport, and is hoping to have the project completed sometime this fall.

“It will be a dedicated solar system to run equipment in our seaweed nursery and sea urchin hatchery, for energy savings and outage backup power,” Redmond said. “We’ll be relying on their [Sundog Solar’s] expertise to determine power needs and solar array size to run the seaweed nursery and sea urchin hatchery at our facility.”

The company already uses solar power to dry its product.

“Our farmed organic seaweed is produced using solar drying, so we hope to become climate positive by adding solar to our nursery systems,” Redmond said.

Expanding the solar facility at Springtide Seaweed has been a goal of Redmond’s for some time.

“We’ve been wanting to add solar to our facility for a while, but haven’t had the resources to take on the project,” she said. “This spring, we had help from my dad, Robin Redmond, who generously donated the solar equipment required to get started. Around the same time, I had become aware of the Island Institute’s Spark Grant, which offers energy efficiency support to working waterfront businesses and communities, and the grant was a perfect fit for our project.”

The solar expansion reflects the company’s consciousness of its environmental impact.