Gran Canaria floating wind farm plans put into motion

Spanish independent power producer focused on renewable energy, Greenalia, has submitted a planning application for what could be the first floating offshore wind farm off the island of Gran Canaria.

The company filed its project and environmental documentation for a 50 MW project, named Parque Eólico Gofio, which will comprise four 12.5 MW wind turbines on floating foundations.

The project site is located in the South East of the Gran Canaria Island, in waters off the municipality of San Bartolomé de Tirajana and close to the port of Arinaga. According to Greenalia, this is one of the areas with highest wind resource in Europe, which has been highlighted in several energy reports.

The 50 MW Parque Eólico Gofio will produce enough electricity to meet the demand of approximately 70,000 households, the developer states.

The company further said it believed the development of this project would have a significant positive effect on local economy in the Canary Islands by creating many direct and indirect jobs, and that it would contribute to achieving Spain’s and Canary Islands’ renewable energy goals.

In terms of local renewable energy goals, Greenalia expects that bringing its floating wind project to realisation will contribute to the green development in the Canary Region and in meeting its 310 MW Marine Renewable Energy target, established by the Canary Government in 2017.

The company also referred to the 2019 report from WindEurope that detailed on possibilities of reaching a 450 GW offshore wind target in Europe by 2050, which was a part of a European Commission scenario to deliver climate neutrality by 2050.

The report sets a 13 GW target for Spain to meet the European target, while currently there is only a 5 MW offshore wind turbine connected to the Spanish Grid, in the Canary Islands, Greenalia said.

The wind turbine currently spinning off Gran Canaria is the 5 MW Elisa prototype, installed in the summer of 2018 and put into operation in March 2019.

Last year, Floating Power Plant (FPP) signed a Memorandum of Understanding with The Oceanic Platform of the Canary Islands (PLOCAN) to investigate and develop a potential deployment of a commercial scale version of its hybrid floating wind and wave energy device in the PLOCAN site.

The PLOCAN testing site is currently a home to the 1:6 scale W2Power multi-turbine platform, commissioned in June 2019. The project has been developed by EnerOcean, Ghenova, Ingeteam, and Tension Technology Internationa.

Wind resources off Gran Canaria have also attracted big industry players to consider the area for their future floating wind plans. According to local media reports from 2019, Equinor expressed interest into building a 200 MW floating wind farm off the Spanish island.