The €36m ($48.7m) pilot aims to have two distinct prototypes riding the swell off Spain by 2015.

FloatGen, an EU-funded consortium, expects to have engineering wrapped up this year on the concepts:

  • a 2MW unit developed around Gamesa’s G8X turbine mounted on a “surface floating” concrete platform designed by France’s Ideol;
  • and a 3MW prototype based on an Acciona AW-3000, with a semi-submersible to be designed by Spanish shipbuilder Navantia and offshore construction specialist Olav Olsen of Norway.

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