Ocean Winds enters floating wind partnership in Greece

Ocean Winds (OW), a joint venture between EDP Renewables and ENGIE, has signed a collaboration agreement with the Greek renewable energy company Terna Energy to co-develop floating offshore wind projects in Greece.

The companies said they were joining forces to identify the most suitable areas and consequently develop a pipeline of projects in excess of 1.5 GW, with a consistent development roadmap rolled out throughout the current decade.

“We have been monitoring the strong fundamentals of the Greek offshore market and its potential to become one of the most important in the Mediterranean Sea. The ambitious RES targets, excellent wind conditions, growing grid availability and strong industrial and maritime tradition are a few of the key elements that confirm the market’s attractiveness”, Spyros Martinis, CEO of Ocean Winds.

Terna Energy has more than 1.8 GW of renewable energy projects in operation, under construction or ready for construction in Greece and abroad, with a semi-offshore project of St. George Island as its flagship project.

“Terna Energy, in our long commitment to provide clean and renewable energy in Greece, has identified that the next step towards sustainability is the development of offshore wind farms. Floating offshore wind is ideal for the Greek seas, due to their depth and unique characteristics”, said George Peristeris, President of Terna Energy.

“Together, we will be able to provide the Greek energy sector with the necessary capacity of sustainable energy to achieve our national energy targets. At the same time, we will add value to multiple economic sectors of the local economy, by providing new investments in shipyards, ports grid interconnections and other sectors that will boost the local economy and create multiple direct and indirect jobs”.

Ocean Winds, which is behind the WindFloat Atlantic floating wind farm in Portugal, has a portfolio comprising both bottom-fixed and floating wind projects across Europe, North America and Asia. The developer has 1.5 GW under construction and 4 GW under development, and a target of reaching 5 to 7 GW of projects in operation or under construction and 5 to 10 GW in the advanced development stages by 2025.

EDP Renewables and ENGIE created the Ocean Winds joint venture in Europe in July 2020 and, some two months later, launched OW North America.

In September 2020, OW entered into a strategic partnership with Lithuania’s state-controlled energy holding company Ignitis Group with an aim to jointly participate in the first auction for offshore wind in Lithuania which is expected in 2023. In December, Ocean Winds signed a bilateral agreement with the Polish state-owned utility TAURON to cooperate on offshore wind projects in the Baltic Sea.

In the U.S., OW North America holds a 50 per cent stake in Mayflower Wind, a company that secured contracts to deliver 804 MW of offshore wind energy to the Massachusetts utilities by the middle of this decade. Mayflower Wind’s federal lease area, awarded in December 2018, has the potential to reach over 1.6 GW.

In addition, OW North America is a partner in the Redwood Coast floating offshore wind project on the US West Coast. OW will fill EDP Renewables’ role in the Redwood Coast public-private consortium committed to developing an offshore wind project utilizing floating platform technology off the coast of Humboldt County in Northern California.