Wednesday 24 October 2018

The European Investment Bank today announced a €60m loan to help fund the world’s second floating offshore wind farm in Portugal.

Windplus – a subsidiary of EDP Renewables, Repsol and Principle Power – are developing the 25 MW floating offshore wind farm 20km off the Portuguese Viana do Castelo coast. The WindFloat project – will sit in waters 85-100 metres deep.

One of the key advantages of floating offshore wind is that turbines are located further away from shores in areas with higher average wind speeds without depth constraints. Nearly 80% of Europe’s offshore wind resources are located in waters 60 metres or more. In addition, much of the construction, installation and operation and maintenance can be done in the port, limiting costs as compared to operations out at sea.

Floating offshore wind offers vast potential for growth in Europe. At 4,000 GW, it is significantly more than the resource potential of the US and Japan combined.