For the first time, floating offshore wind has been brought online as a new renewable generation technology in Spain.
The country’s first floating offshore wind turbine is now connected to the grid and generating power.
The pilot program is called the DemoSATH floating offshore wind project, and its 2 megawatt (MW) turbine is now supplying power that’s equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of around 2,000 Spanish households. (SATH is what its floating platform concept is called, and Demo is… well, you know.) It has a rotor diameter of 96 m (315 feet).
DemoSATH was installed two miles off the Basque coast in August by Spanish engineering firm Saitec Offshore Technologies, along with the Germany’s RWE Offshore Wind and Japan’s Kansai Electric Power.
It’s the fifth European floating technology with a turbine of over 1 MW installed in open sea. It’s also the third concrete-based technology to reach this level of development.
Check out this great video from Saitec that shows how its floating turbine was built, towed out, and installed:
Data from this pilot project is now going to be gathered for the next two years.
Davis Carrascosa, chief operation officer at Saitec Offshore Technologies, said, “We are proud of the work accomplished and of being the pioneers in Spain in providing renewable energy with a floating wind turbine. This will be our testing ground to gain knowledge based on real-world experience and apply it in future larger-scale projects.”
Photo: Saitec Offshore Technologies
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Keyword: Spain’s first-ever floating offshore wind turbine just came online