Spain Prepares First Offshore Wind Project

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland) - Spain's first steps into offshore wind power took a big leap forward this month when Spanish energy company, Gamesa Corporation S.A. (MCE:GAM) (Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain), shipped the components for its 5-megawatt (MW) turbine to the Canary Islands.

The components for the country's first offshore wind turbine were shipped from the port of Bilbao and will arrive later this week at Arinaga Quay on the island of Gran Canaria. Gamesa intends to install the prototype G128-5.0MW offshore turbine in the coming months and will commission the device in Q3 this year. The components consisted of three wind turbine blades, the nacelle and the tower.

The blades, manufactured at Aoiz, weigh in at 15 tons each and have a span of 62.5 meters (m), which makes them the largest ever produced in Spain and among the largest in Europe. The nacelle was manufactured at a factory in Tauste, Zaragoza, and is 12.5m long, 4m tall and wide and weighs 72 tons. The tower measures 90m and was manufactured by Windar, a joint venture between Gamesa and Daniel Alonso.

The 5 MW turbine is the largest yet from Gamesa and marks a growing trend by turbine manufacturers for building and testing much larger turbines than arethose in use today. Gamesa announced that it has plans to develop turbines with capacities of up to 7 MW and 8MW in the medium to long term. In February, the U.K. became home to the first real-world testing of a prototype 6 MW turbine when Siemens installed two of the massive turbines at Dong's Gunfleet Sands project, almost 9 kilometres (km) off the English coast. For additional information, see February 5, 2013, article - U.K. Tests Largest Offshore Wind Turbines

Wind energy is already a prominent contributor to Spain's electricity, albeit from a large number of onshore windfarms. Earlier this year, grid operator Red Electrica de Espana announced that wind energy generated more electricity in January than any other power source. Spanish wind farms created a new record by generating 6 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity, accounting for 25% of all electricity.

According to the Spanish Wind Energy Association (SWEA): "The last time any technology exceeded 6 terawatt-hours of monthly generation was in 2010, when it was combined-cycle gas turbines".

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