Artificial Reefs built from Sun and Seawater will Protect the Isle of Man:  The first ever deep-water marina planned for the Irish Sea will be protected against wave damage by an artificial reef built. It will leverage an electrolytic process that creates a coral-like substrate from minerals abundantly available in seawater.           The project is being undertaken off the shore of Ramsey, Isle of Man, by British based CCell Renewables, which developed the technology as a cost-effective way to protect fragile coastlines and encourage the growth of robust marine ecosystems.     An on-site solar farm will be used to power the nine-month trial in Douglas Harbor, located just South of the proposed site for the Ramsey Marina.                        It will serve as both a marine habitat and a living barrier against coastal erosion.                                           Both issues, especially coastal erosion, are a steadily growing concern throughout the world. The effects of coastal erosion are caused by the stronger and more frequent storms and rising sea levels, which many scientists now agree are principally due to climate change.    As reported by Electronic Design in January 2020, CCell's reef building system (originally developed by BioRock Technology) uses the electrolysis of seawater to extract calcium carbonate (limestone) and deposit it on large steel frames that serve as forms to give the new reef its early structure.  The process grows rocks at approximately 2.5 centimeters(cm) or one inch, per year. At that pace, it takes only 5 years to build the substrate, rather than the hundreds of years it would take to form naturally.    As with CCell's earlier projects in the Gulf of Mexico, the harbor's reef formation system will be powered by renewable energy, in this case, an onshore solar plant.  But renewable sources such as solar, wind, and wave power generation, tend to have highly variable outputs that, if unmanaged, will impact the efficiency of the electrolysis process.  To overcome this problem, CCell teamed up with Vicor, a power technology company, to create a power-distribution network that could use the widely varying outputs to produce the highly regulated power needed to achieve optimal limestone growth. For the Isle of Man project, CCell will use a variant of the original power system it developed in Mexico.    In addition to stimulating reef growth, the project will collect the status information and performance data generated by the system's control systems and feed it to a wireless internet connection, creating what CCell refers to as a "digital reef."  By connecting the reefs to the internet of things (IoT), the company will be able to observe the marine environment and take regular measurements from its office in London.        Dr. Will Bateman, founder and CEO of CCell, said, "Our reef technology-a 'plug-in digital living reef"-will provide the Marina with natural protection from erosion and at the same time enhance the quality of the local marine ecosystem.    It's great to be involved in a major project in UK and European waters-our first-and be part of such an exciting development that will boost the Isle of Man's marine environment and its economy."      As part of its work,  CCell will be testing the integration of used scallop shells within the reef and, in due course, used mussel shells, both by-products from the island's fishing industry.    Around the reefs, and across Ramsey Bay, the project will partner with the Ocean Conservation Trust-in Plymouth on efforts to regenerate the local seagrass meadows.      Complementing the project's seagrass growth, the habitat created by CCell's reef is expected to provide a significant bump in the quantities and varieties of fish living in the Isle of Man's waters.  The present plan is to have the first artificial reefs installed during 2024/25.                           The reef structures themselves have a design lifespan of 40 years, but the living rocks and the thriving ecosystem they're expected to leave behind should live well beyond that.