This pioneering floating offshore wind platform will be piloted in Portugal - Electrek.co
This pioneering floating offshore wind platform will be piloted in Portugal
Dublin-based floating offshore wind platform developer Gazelle Wind Power is teaming up with Portuguese renewable energy developer WAM Horizon to pilot its platform in Portugal – a country aiming to achieve 10 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind by 2030.
Gazelle says its floating offshore wind platform, which is designed for deep waters, is both modular and scalable, so manufacture and assembly is cost-effective and efficient. Its components are smaller and lighter, reducing the need for space in harbors and shipyards, and that minimizes the need for cranes. Existing port infrastructure can be utilized to develop Gazelle’s platform when it’s commercialized in the future.
Gazelle says it’s “easier and more cost-effective to transport [its] platform to a site than any other floater.” The company says its platform’s geometric design has less than a five-degree pitch, and “a pitch of less than 10 degrees means less wear, less maintenance, and a longer life for the wind turbine generator, which translates into more energy production and greater ROI.”
WAM Horizon, a Portuguese firm, has extensive experience in the region. Adelino Costa Matos, WAM Horizon’s chairman, was involved in Portugal’s first large-scale commercial floating wind project, the 25 MW WindFloat Atlantic, the first of its kind in the country. Matos also serves as a non-executive director on the Gazelle board.
Matos said:
The innovative design behind the Gazelle platform makes it a very promising solution to drive the offshore wind industry into the future, supporting WAM Horizon’s long-term vision to enable offshore wind at a large scale. We are eager to continue working with the Gazelle team to move this pilot project forward and make an impact on the clean energy transition.
Read more: Portugal brings forward 80% clean energy target to 2026 from 2030
Photo: Gazelle Wind Power
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Related Knowledge Center: Offshore wind energy
Over the next decade, U.S. offshore wind power is expected to grow from a single 30-megawatt wind farm off Rhode Island to more than 2,000 MW of capacity along the Atlantic Seaboard. There are contracts for wind power off the coasts of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Maryland, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Virginia.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has estimated the United States has over 4,000 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind potential, enough to power the country four times over.
The growth in part being spurred by state solicitations, including in New York, where then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) set a commitment of 9,000 MW of offshore wind by 2035, and in Connecticut, where in June 2021, Gov. Ned Lamont (D) signed legislation authorizing the construction of 2,000 MW of offshore wind by 2030.
The offshore development is also being driven by an investment tax credit set to end in December 2019 and is equal to 12 percent of expenditures. U.S. Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Tom Carper (D-Del.) have introduced a bill to extend the tax credit for up to eight years.
The Interior Department has held eight competitive lease sales that resulted in 15 offshore wind leases over 1.7 million acres that has the potential for 21 GW of capacity. In February 2022, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management completed a bidding process that realized $4.37 billion for 488,000 acres across six lease areas in federal waters off New York and New Jersey.
Projects have also been proposed off the Southeast coast, off California and Hawaii, and for the Great Lakes.