2023-04-30 10:00:26
BarcelonaNaturgy, the large energy company of Catalan origin, wants to take another step in renewable energy and enter the generation off shore with an offshore wind farm in the Canary Islands. The company chaired by Francisco Reynés has already presented its project to the territory and wants it to be the first marine wind farm in the State, advancing the project of the Tramuntana park in the Bay of Roses. But there are many differences with the Catalan project.
To take the project forward, Naturgy has teamed up with Equinor and the two companies are open to incorporating new investors, especially local ones. The project, called Fowca (an acronym for Floating Offshore Wind Canarias), would involve an investment of around 900 million euros. However, the Ministry for Ecological Transition, which just a few weeks ago approved the marine wind map, still needs to launch the auction. An auction to which other companies could be submitted. According to Naturgy, for the park to be operational in 2030, construction would need to start in 2027. Therefore, the tender should be held in 2023.
The Canary Islands park would have a power of 216 megawatts (MW), with a dozen floating wind turbines between 8 and 16 kilometers southeast of the island of Gran Canaria. The director of the Fowca project, Anne Marit Hansen, and the development delegate of Naturgy Renovables in the Canary Islands, Sergio Auffray, have been in Tenerife and Gran Canaria this week presenting the project to the local entrepreneurs of the Maritime Cluster of the Canary Islands (CMC) and the Canarian Federation of Port Companies (Fedeport).
The Canary Islands would provide a third of the electricity of the island of Gran Canaria
“We want the local content to be as high as possible”, according to Auffray, who recalled in his exhibitions that this park, if it goes ahead, would be able to supply a third of the electrical energy of Gran Canaria and would avoid emissions of CO2 equivalent to those produced by 350,000 cars. The project, during its different phases, could create up to 2,500 direct, indirect and induced jobs.
The Norwegian company Equinor is an important piece in this project because it is one of the most recognized in the development of offshore wind, with a farm in operation in Scotland and another under development in Norway.
Floating mills
The technology is particularly important in this case because it wants to be done with floating wind turbines. In other words, they are not founded directly on the seabed, but the mills are on floating platforms secured to the bottom by cables at depths of between 200 and 600 meters. This technology allows the mills to move away from the coast and reduce the visual impact. In addition, in this case the connection to land is to be made with a semi-submersible floating platform technology.
Thus, in some tourist areas the mills can barely be seen from the coast. The facilities will be visible on the horizon, assure the promoters of the Canary Islands park. In the case of the Costa Brava, the park’s promoters made a simulation and argued that the visual impact would be minimal (see image). It is not the only difference: while in the Canary Islands the Maritime Cluster seems to support it, in Roses since the offshore wind project was announced voices against it quickly emerged, which gathered in the Stop Macro association Wind Park Aside from the visual impact (there are mills planned 14 kilometers from Cap de Creus, it is 18 kilometers long and the height of the mills will be 258 meters), the Empordà park would be located next to an included space in the European Natura 2000 network and, according to opponents, could affect the area’s biodiversity.
The promoters, as in the case of Roses, ensure that the visual impact on the tourist areas will be minimal
At the end of February, the Council of Ministers approved the Marine Management Plan (POEM), which establishes the areas where marine wind power can be developed. The Canary Islands are the third area with the most square kilometers that can host it. The POEM indicates that the North Atlantic demarcation – which mainly affects the Galician coast – is the area with the most potential for the installation of offshore wind power (2,688 square kilometers). It is followed by the Straits and Alborán (1,222 square kilometers) and the Canary Islands (561 square kilometers). The Roses project would be located in the Llevantine-Balearic demarcation (474 square kilometers), of which 250 affect the Catalan coast and 147 Menorca.
Although the Naturgy and Equinor project wants to be the first in the State, the competition to be the first will be great. In the case of Catalonia, Tramuntana Park has already been presenting its projects, driven by the companies BlueFloat Energy and Sener. As in the case of the Canaries, they are also trying to add local investors to a project that, if it goes ahead, would be bigger than the one in the Canaries now proposed, because there is talk of 35 mills with a power of 500 MW and a planned investment of between 1,500 and 1,800 million euros.
The differences between Roses and Gran Canaria
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Power
The park that Naturgy is planning in the Canary Islands would have a power of 216 MW, while the Tramuntana park in the Bay of Roses would have around 500.
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investment
While the promoters of the Tramuntana park estimate that they will need between 1,500 and 1,800 million euros, Naturgy and Equinor estimate that they will have to invest 900 million. In both cases, the promoting companies want to open up the investment to local partners. In the case of the Costa Brava, however, the Tramuntana park is not the only thing to do there. The companies Cobra, on the one hand, and Iberdrola, on the other, also have projects to build installations in the area.
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Wind turbines
The Tramuntana park is projected with 35 wind turbines, which would be located an average of 24 kilometers from the coastline, while the Canary Islands park is designed for a dozen mills, at a distance of between 8 and 16 kilometers from the coast.
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Extension
He The Maritime Spatial Planning Plan (POEM) envisages an area of 250 square kilometers on the Costa Brava for marine wind farms. On the other hand, in the Canary Islands there are 561 square kilometers of sea surface where wind farms can be built.
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