76 GW of offshore wind potential in Romania identified as first project plan emerges

Romania holds technical offshore wind potential of 76 gigawatts (GW), according to the latest data from the World Bank, released around the same time the country’s power producer Hidroelectrica revealed plans for Romania’s first offshore wind farm.

The 76 GW include both bottom-fixed and floating wind turbines. The potential for floating wind has been estimated to be more than double that of bottom-fixed wind turbines. Still, the figures for “conventional” offshore wind itself show nothing less than vast potential for the country on the Black Sea.

Specifically, Romania has 22 GW of technical potential for bottom-fixed offshore wind, considered for an offshore area closer to the coast and in water depths of up to 50 metres. For floating wind, looked at as the go-to technology for a bigger offshore area farther from the coast and in water depths of up to 1,000 metres, the technical potential stands at 54 GW.

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A study published in the Journal of Marine Science and Engineering in May 2019 identified areas in the vicinity of Saint George and 20 kilometres off Mangalia as having good offshore wind potential. The study also referred to high water depths at the sites it looked in terms of offshore wind deployment, where floating wind turbines might be more suitable. Furthermore, it considered an advantage of the Black Sea being an enclosed basin, meaning extreme wave conditions are less severe than in the ocean environment and thus the wind turbines would be less affected.

While the technical potential, now identified by the World Bank, will not translate into practical and economic potential in its entirety, the data comes at almost the same time as Hidroelectrica plans to carry out feasibility studies for its first planned offshore wind farm, and a few months after Romanian Economy Minister Virgil Popescu said that offshore wind potential in Romania should be investigated.

According to Hidroelectrica, the company will start with studies to determine the offshore wind potential in the Romanian sector of the Black Sea, which has not been analysed on a national level so far.

Minister Popescu said earlier that there was offshore wind potential in the Black Sea for Romania to tap into, but no studies had been carried out, according to local media’s reports from February. At the time, he also pointed out that Hidroelectrica was the company that could develop offshore wind projects, co-funded by EU schemes.

Offshore Energy reached out to the Romanian Ministry of Economy, Energy and the Business Environment for a comment on the World Bank’s findings and to find out if there was anything on the country’s government to do to ease and speed up offshore wind development. The Ministry is yet to respond to our inquiry.