Located 1.5 km off the coast, the platform will serve as the field control tower for the test bed with the aim of hosting the equipment and people to conduct research, development and innovation (RDI) initiatives in the marine science and technologies sector.
PLOCAN (Oceanic Platform of the Canary Islands) is a research facility co-funded by the Spanish and Canary Islands governments with the aim of supporting the research and development in the fields of ocean science and technology.
PLOCAN offers both onshore and offshore experimental facilities available to public and private users, located off the east coast of Gran Canaria island, including PLOCAN offshore structure that is currently under construction in the port of La Luz, Las Palmas.
Once completed, the structure will be anchored to the seabed at the depth of 30.5 m, with the necessary electricity and communications infrastructure to guarantee connectivity and to transmit the electricity from the different devices undergoing trials.
The structure will be accessible both by sea and air, and will be located at the test bed site with the bathymetric conditions that provide depths from 30 to over 600 m, all with the electricity and communications infrastructure necessary to evacuate both the electricity and the data generated from the prototypes from sea to land.
To remind, the Canarian Agency for Research, Innovation and Information Society (ACIISI) allocated €1.2 million in its 2016 budget for PLOCAN initiative.
Take a look at the video showing what the completed PLOCAN offshore structure.
Source: PLOCAN