Floating Wind Farm Offshore Portugal Overdelivers

The 25 MW Windfloat Atlantic floating wind farm offshore Portugal produced 75 GWh of electricity in its first year of operation, EDP Renewables said.

Located 20 kilometers off the coast of Viana do Castelo, the project is the world’s first semi-submersible floating wind farm which became operational in July 2020.

The wind farm was developed by the Windplus consortium formed by OW, a 50:50 joint-venture between EDPR and ENGIE, Repsol, and Principle Power.

“The project has performed well above expectations,” José Pinheiro, the project director, said.

”It has registered high levels of availability and a production that has exceeded expectations for many months. We wanted to share these positive results of a project that has marked a before and after in the offshore wind energy industry because of the technology used and because it has become the first floating and semi-submersible wind farm in the world.”

Pinheiro also stressed that there are great opportunities for expansion of this technology, both in Portugal and abroad, which EDPR, through Ocean Winds, is already exploring in different markets.

The WindFloat Atlantic project features three MHI Vestas 8.4 MW turbines mounted on Principle Power’s semi-submersible floating foundations.

The three floating turbines were towed from the Port of Ferrol in Spain to the installation site.

NOTE: The original article has been updated.