Spanish developer plans another floating wind farm in Italy

The western coast of Sardinia could see a floating wind farm of a little less than 500 MW being built by a Spain-based renewable energy developer, which is so far known to have submitted at least two applications for floating offshore wind projects in Italy.

Following the recent news on Acciona’s application for a 30-year maritime concession to build a 555 MW floating wind farm in the Ionian Sea, offshore Calabria, Italian state and local authorities have opened public consultation on another project from the company that they are now processing.

According to the consultation notice from the Porto Torres Port Authority, Acciona filed for a concession on 5 May, requesting to build the wind farm in the Western Sardinian Sea, off the central-western coast of Sardinia, in the stretch of water between Capo Marargiu and Capo Mannu.

The wind farm would consist of 32 wind turbines with an output of 15 MW each, making up for a total of 480 MW of installed capacity.

The wind turbines are planned to be installed on floating foundations, anchored to the seabed, and would be connected to a floating HVAC offshore electrical substation for 66/380 kV transformation.

From the offshore substation, an export cable would run to a landfall site on the west pier of the Port of Alghero, covering a distance of approximately 51 kilometres.

An underground cable would then be installed along a 40-kilometre route, from the landfall site to a substation which would be located near the existing 380 kV “SE Fiume Santo” substation owned by Terna SpA in Cabu Aspru, in the Municipality of Sassari.

Acciona has been increasingly involved in offshore wind over the past couple of years.

Last year, the company 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.

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

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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