Irish offshore renewables developer Simply Blue has inked a deal with Spanish outfits Proes Consultores and FF New Energy Venture to explore development of floating wind projects in the Iberia region.
The memorandum of understanding between the three targets building some 2GW of “opportunities” in the deep waters off Spain and Portugal, as both European countries have in recent months set out ambitious targets for floating wind development.
“We believe we can bring our extensive experience [in the UK and Ireland, where Simply Blue has been up a gigascale project pipeline] to the Spanish and Portuguese market in terms of lessons learnt from our early floating wind projects in the UK and Ireland,” said Adrian De Andres, Simply Blue’s director of market development.
Ignacio Sanchidrián, executive general manager of Proes Consultores, an arm of the Amper engineering conglomerate, said “We believe that floating wind has a key role to play in our growth strategy [that builds on] our broad expertise in coastal engineering, renewable energy, and environmental impact assessment.”
FF NEV CEO Manuel Fernandez de Castro said: “Floating wind is complementary to solar energy from an energy mix perspective, and we believe our renewable energy development experience in Spain can strengthen this consortium.
“Energy security is paramount in the landscape we currently live in, and we believe the addition of floating offshore wind to our portfolio is the right step to help Spain reach its net-zero ambitions.”
The Spanish government in December approved a roadmap for offshore wind and marine energy that sets a target to build 1-3GW of floating wind off its coasts by 2030.
Portugal meanwhile in January revealed it aims to hold a debut floating wind power auction this summer to spur 3-4GW of projects that can be in place by 2026.
Floating wind power’s global build-out this decade has been forecast by the Global Wind Energy Council to reach over 16GW, though some analysts remain concerned outdated current government policy frameworks have the potential of limiting the sector to deploying as little as 5GW by 2030.
