Portugal's First Floating Offshore Windfarm Gets Green Light

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--Portugal's government has given the green light to one of the world's leading floating offshore windfarms.

The 25-megawatt (MW) WindFloat Atlantic (WFA) floating windfarm project in Viana do Castelo has been cleared for construction 20 kilometres (km) off the coast of northern Portugal. It is due for commissioning in 2018 and will use three 8-MW turbines form Vestas Wind Systems A/S (OMX:VWS) (Aarhus, Denmark).

The project is being developed by joint venture company WindPlus, which is owned by EDP Renewables (Lisbon, Portugal), Mitsubishi Corporation (DGE), Chiyoda Corporation (Tokyo, Japan), Trust Energy (Engie and Marubeni) and Repsol S.A. (Madrid, Spain). The project is Stage two of a three-phase project, the first phase having involved the testing of a 2-MW prototype floating turbine. A third, much larger stage also is planned, with a proposed generating capacity of 100 MW, depending on the success of this 25-MW project. The 2-MW prototype, which has just been decommissioned, became operational in 2011 and generated more than 17 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of electricity over the six-year period.

Principle Power's WindFloat technology is a semi-submersible floating structure that boasts a number of features that dampen wave- and turbine-induced motion, enabling offshore wind turbines to be sited in previously inaccessible locations where water depth exceeds 50 metres and wind resources are superior.

In October Industrial Info reported that first power had been generated at the world's floating offshore windfarm located in deep waters 25 kilometres (km) offshore Peterhead in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. The 30-MW Hywind project, developed by Norway's oil and gas giant Statoil ASA (NYSE:STO), is capable of powering up to 20,000 homes with the floating turbines located in water depths of 800 metres. For additional information, see October 23, 2017, article - First Floating Offshore Windfarm Powers Up in Scotland.

Industrial Info is tracking the upsurge in floating offshore windfarm projects in Europe. There are five proposed and at various stages of construction:

• Hywind Scotland--30 MW--Scotland, 2017
• Kincardine--48 MW--Scotland, from 2018
• Dounreay Tri--2 x 5 MW--Scotland, 2018
• WindFloat Atlantic--30 MW--Portugal, 2018-2019
• Atlantis/Ideol project--100 MW--U.K., 2021

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