Principle Power Joins World Ocean Council

Floating wind technology developer Principle Power has joined the World Ocean Council (WOC), the global, multi-industry alliance on “corporate ocean responsibility.”

Principle Power CEO, Joao Metelo, said: “Principle Power believes that WOC provides a unique, international multi-sectoral ocean industry forum that is important to the growth of our company and the offshore wind energy sector overall. For example, we are already benefiting from the relationships with investors that resulted from our participation in the WOC Sustainable Ocean Summit and the WOC Ocean Investment Platform.”

Principle Power is the developer of the floating offshore wind turbine foundation – the WindFloat – which was recently picked by a French consortium behind a bid to build a floating wind farm off France with a capacity of up to 36MW.

The WindFloat was also a preferred choice of a consortium building the 25MW WindFloat Atlantic wind farm off the coast of Northern Portugal announced in November 2015.

Kevin Banister, Principle Power’s Senior Business Development Manager, said: “Accelerating offshore renewable energy development is critical to realizing the ambitious goals of the Paris Agreement and other local and state renewable energy targets. As a multi-industry organization, the WOC can facilitate our ability to meet and work with other sectors and reduce the barriers to scaling up offshore renewable energy development.”

WOC CEO, Paul Holthus, said: “We are honoured to have Principle Power as one of the newest WOC Members. We are working with them to identify and address the barriers to growth in offshore wind energy, as part of the WOC efforts to assist ocean industries to support the Sustainable Development Goals.”

As a result, the 2016 Sustainable Ocean Summit (SOS) will have a major session focussed on the interaction between offshore renewable energy and other ocean industries. Tackling climate change requires understanding and addressing the obstacles to rapid, responsible growth in offshore renewable energy in marine areas. SOS 2016 takes place in Rotterdam from 30 November to 2 December, 2016.