Spanish company requests floating offshore wind concession in Italy

A Spain-based renewable energy developer has submitted an application for a 30-year maritime concession in the Ionian Sea, offshore Calabria in Italy, where the company wants to build a floating wind farm.

The company has filed a request to obtain a concession for a stretch of water of 3.7 square kilometres, of which 15,118 square meters would accommodate floating wind turbines. The site is located at a minimum distance of 23 kilometres from the Calabrian coast of Punta Stilo.

According to information available at Italian Ministry of Sustainable Infrastructures and Mobility, and the Port Authority of the Port of Crotone, Acciona plans to build a floating offshore wind farm comprising 37 wind turbines, each with a capacity of 15 MW.

The 555 MW floating wind farm would have one HVAC floating offshore electrical substation for 66/380 kV transformation, which would be connected to land via export cables that would link the wind farm to the National Transmission Grid (NTG) near the existing 380 kV “SE Maida” onshore transformation and switching station owned by Terna SpA in the Montagna district.

The company recently acquired 24 per cent of the capital of Eolink, a French company specialising in the development of floating offshore wind foundations, which made the Spanish developer the main shareholder.

Last year, Acciona signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Scottish SSE Renewables, with whom it is already cooperating in Spain and Portugal, to establish a 50/50 joint venture to explore offshore wind opportunities in the Polish energy market.

In April this year, SSE Renewables announced that it had submitted an application for an Offshore Location License for a site in the Baltic Sea in Poland, with Acciona Energía to join the development of the project if the license is granted.

In Italy, there are currently tens of concession applications being processed by local and state authorities, many of which are for floating wind farms.

Some of the latest applications for floating wind projects were filed by Falck Renewables and BlueFloat Energy, and Eni Plenitude and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP).

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