Co-locating offshore renewables and aquaculture: feasibility, site-selection, and O&M synergies—a state of the art review

The rapid expansion of offshore renewables, particularly wind and wave, has intensified competition for marine space and constrained conventional fisheries, raising concerns for food security. To reconcile energy and seafood production, two multi-use strategies have emerged: integrated multi-purpose offshore platforms and co-location of distinct facilities within the same site. While most multi-purpose offshore platforms concepts remain pre-commercial, co-location offers a simpler, lower-risk pathway by deploying aquaculture systems alongside offshore energy arrays. This review synthesizes technical feasibility, site-selection methods, operational and maintenance synergies, and socio-ecological considerations for co-locating offshore wind/wave energy with aquaculture. We catalog global pilots and emerging commercial efforts, summarize decision tools, and outline criteria spanning resource exploitation, structural requirements, operational suitability, and environmental/socio-political constraints. We highlight cross-system interactions, especially wave “shadowing” that alters local metocean conditions, with implications for accessibility, structural reliability, and aquaculture performance. Finally, we propose an adaptive, iterative framework that updates site rankings after layout-driven climate modifications, and identify research gaps in reliability-constrained layout optimization, cable/anchoring risk management, and standardized screening checklists to move from pilots to bankable deployments.