World’s First Semi-Submersible Floating Offshore Wind Farm Exceeds Expectations

WindFloat Atlantic, the world’s first semi-submersible floating offshore wind farm, has completed its second full year in operation.

The 25 MW WindFloat Atlantic ended 2022 with an electricity production of 78GWh, a five per cent increase in output compared to 2021.

Fully commissioned in 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.

According to the project’s owners and operators, the favourable data shows Portugal’s offshore wind energy potential, which is reflected in the annual availability of the wind farm, which was between 93-94 per cent, as well as showing the success of WindFloat Atlantic’s innovative technology, being a benchmark within the offshore sector.

WindFloat Atlantic has an O&M base in the port of Viana do Castelo, from where the team receives all the information in real time from the wind farm and controls the different issues that may arise and require on-site intervention, which are complex due to the adverse weather and sea conditions in the wind farm area in the Atlantic Ocean.

This year, between the O&M activities, which included preventive and corrective actions, more than 18,000 hours have been worked, without any accidents that required first aid, treatment, or provoked leaves due to injury, the operators said.

José Pinheiro, Country Manager for Southern Europe and Project Director for WindFloat Atlantic, said: ”Every day of WindFloat Atlantic in operation is one additional day of acquired knowledge to OW – something very valuable and differentiating when projecting future floating commercial projects.
Through this accumulated experience, OW not only we will be able to do fewer errors, but also bring optimizations and deliver more benefits to those who come to benefit directly and indirectly from our future commercial floating offshore projects.”

WindFloat Atlantic is exceeding the production expectations set for this project and considering that it will be in operation for the next 25 years, the positive impact of WindFloat Atlantic will never stop increasing, according to the companies behind the project. The pioneer wind farm consists of three platforms, each supporting one 8.4-MW Vestas turbine, which are anchored with chains to the seabed and connected to the onshore substation in the Portuguese municipality of Viana do Castelo through a 20-kilometre cable.

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