A group of energy and engineering companies including Portugal’s EDP Renewables, France based Engie, Spanish energy group Repsol and Japan based Mitsubishi and Chiyoda, have come together to build a floating wind farm in offshore Portugal.
The project is to be called WindFloat Atlantic (WFA) and will be built 20km off the northern Portuguese coast at Viana do Castelo.
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It will be implemented by Windplus, a consortium owned by EDP Renewables, Mitsubishi, Chiyoda, Engie and Repsol.
WindFloat Atlantic project will feature three or four wind turbines on floating foundations with a power generation capacity of 25MW.
Expected to be operational in 2018, the project will require an investment of approximately ¥16bn ($130m).
The project will use the WindFloat technology, an innovative semi-submersible foundation developed by Principle Power.
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By GlobalDataWindFloat technology has already been used in a prototype called WindFloat 1 near Póvoa do Varzim, which features a 2MW Vestas V80 wind turbine mounted on a WindFloat floating offshore wind turbine foundation.
The companies will also look to demonstrate the economic benefit of the technology and explore its commercialisation.
The prototype has already generated 16GWh during the four years of operation in different weather conditions.
The project will also receive support from the European Commission, through the NER 300 programme, and from the Portuguese Government through the Portuguese Carbon Fund. It was also selected for the InnovFin programme by the European Investment Bank.
