Offshore gas platform owner to test wind potential in North Adriatic

A confidential owner of oil and gas platforms in the North Adriatic Concession area has contracted renewable energy consultancy Megajoule to install multiple wind Lidars at gas platforms as part of the company’s Low Carbon Development Strategy.

Lidar ZX 300M will be deployed to begin taking measurements up to 300 metres from their installed position on the gas platforms to support the assessment of potential wind energy in the area.

Best practice for any wind development is to measure wind conditions at heights that respond to the expected wind turbines and with the introduction of 15 MW+ generators this introduces 260-metre hub heights and 220-metre rotor diameters dismissing the feasibility of using met masts, Megajoule said.

ZX 300M has been responsible for more than 95 per cent of offshore wind measurements from floating platforms and the use of the technology has attracted more than £150 billion (around US$200 billion) in clean energy investment in the last five years alone, according to Megajoule.

It is expected that Megajoule’s deployment of these Lidars shall also be used to finance future offshore wind farm development in the Adriatic.

”For decades we installed tall met masts at sea – it was the way offshore wind resource assessment was done,” a spokesperson for Megajoule said.

”Today’s modern approach is with Lidar, specifically ZX 300M which in a relatively short period of time has probably already gathered more offshore wind data than ever previously existed from masts. It is the new standard for offshore wind resource assessment and Megajoule are proud to sign contracts with our confidential client, and with ZX Lidars to unlock the future of offshore wind in the Adriatic.”

In recent news, Italy’s Ministry of Ecological Transition has received 64 Expressions of Interest (EoI) for the construction of floating offshore wind farms off the country’s coast.

More than ten of the floating offshore wind projects submitted are located in the Adriatic Sea.

Croatian energy company INA, the owner and operator of the Northern Adriatic and Marica gas fields, is reportedly also looking into developing offshore wind projects off Croatia’s Adriatic Sea coast.