2023-08-24 04:00:24
The first floating offshore wind farm on the planet (Windfloat Atlantic), located off the coast of Viana do Castelo (north of Portugal), and promoted by the Portuguese energy company EDP, celebrates three years of full capacity operations this month when the company –now an offshore wind power partner with the French Engie through the Ocean Winds joint venture– continues to analyze other implementation options in the Iberian Peninsula –including Asturias, where it aspires to install one of these complexes– and in other parts of the planet.
The Windfloat Atlantic complex actually began to produce energy in December 2019, which was when the first of the towers was installed, which was built in Ferrol by the Aviles company Windar and the state company Navantia, and which was installed 18 kilometers from the coast . Gradually, and until August 2020, the other two platforms, manufactured in Setúbal (Portugal), came into operation.
Three years after the deployment was completed, this complex – the most distant of whose wind turbines is located 20 kilometers from the coast – occupies a maritime area of 11 square kilometers and has met the expectations of production, performance and reliability. According to its promoters, its compatibility with biodiversity and various marine uses such as fishing have also been verified.
With an installed capacity of 25 megawatts between the three wind turbines (equivalent to the energy consumed by 60,000 homes for one year), the Wind Float project belongs to the Windplus consortium, led by Ocean Winds (the joint venture of EDP’s renewable energy subsidiary and Engie) and in which the Spanish energy company Repsol and the US technology provider Principle Power also participate with a smaller shareholding weight.
Prototype.
The Viana do Castelo complex is the first commercial experience of the so-called semi-submerged offshore wind power after the pilot project (now dismantled) that the consortium developed between 2011 and 2016 off the coast of Aguçadoura (40 kilometers south of Viana do Castelo) with a 2 megawatt turbine.
If that prototype showed that floating wind turbines were feasible to take advantage of abundant wind resources that were previously inaccessible to the open sea in deep waters (more than 50 or 60 meters above the seabed) and overcame extreme weather conditions, with waves of up to 17 meters altitude and 60-knot winds, the experience gained in the commercial complex located in front of Viana do Castelo has verified its economic viability (although it still costs more than onshore wind power) and constituted the litmus test for The banking sector saw in this modality of offshore wind energy a promising, profitable activity and therefore susceptible to being financed.
Projects.
In the sector it is taken for granted that it will be the modality with the most promising future compared to fixed offshore wind (wind towers founded on the seabed) because, as occurs in the Iberian Peninsula -and also in Asturias-, in a large part of the perimeter world coastal The narrowness of the continental shelf implies that great depths are reached at a very short distance from the coast and the impossibility of opting for fixed structures.
Ocean Winds currently has another floating marine park in the south of France (in the Gulf of Lion), a fixed one in Scotland and a mixed one (fixed and floating) also in Scotland. Now it is promoting two projects (in the engineering and processing phase) in South Korea and California, the first with 1,300 megawatts and the second with 2,000. The one that EDP projects for Asturias through Oceanwind will have, according to the initial purpose, a power of 50 megawatts, double that of Viana do Castelo, but far from those that are already being promoted. In any case, it is possible that, by the time that happens, and given that the final regulations are not yet in sight –for the moment, only the Maritime Space Management Plan (POEM) has been approved– let alone the call for tenders for the capacity allocation, there have already been next-generation technological advances. The floating offshore wind sector is constantly developing new solutions and it is conceivable that much more powerful turbines will also be available in a short time.
The imposing towers that float in the sea and whose blades do not emit noise
The three imposing wind towers that rise on many other floating platforms 35 minutes by boat from Viana do Castelo are silent. Beneath the gigantic blades that generate electricity by rotating with the impulse of the wind, no noise can be heard other than that of the boat’s engine and the waves of the sea while several groups of dolphins approach to watch the arrival of visitors. It differs from what is usual in the vicinity of terrestrial towers, where the loudness is appreciable. The pioneer of semi-submerged wind farms consists of three 100-meter towers, installed on platforms that add up to another 30 meters in height. Part of the platform emerges and the rest remains below the sea line. Each structure is attached to the seabed, at a depth of 100 meters, by means of a chain whose final anchor has been fixed by dragging on the seabed. Six hundred meters of distance separate each platform from the immediate one. The blades measure 82 meters and describe a diameter of 164 meters. Each turbine has a power of 8.4 megawatts. The complex is designed to be active with winds of up to 100 kilometers per hour and withstand waves of up to 20 meters. Last year it produced 78 gigawatts/hour. Its empowerment is not ruled out.
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