Wind Farms
Scotland
The 30 MW Hywind Scotland pilot park, the world’s first floating offshore wind farm, has been in operation since 2017. Each year since Hywind Scotland started production the floating wind farm has achieved the highest average capacity factor (54%) of all UK offshore windfarms, proving the operating potential of floating offshore wind farms. The farm has five 6 MW Siemens direct-drive turbines on Hywind floating monopiles.
Hywind Scotland is in water depths from 95 – 120 meters and operated by Hywind (Scotland) Limited, a joint venture between Equinor (75%) and Masdar (25%).
Portugal
WindFloat Atlantic is a floating offshore wind farm located 20 kilometers off the Coast of Viana do Castelo, Portugal that has been in operation since 2019. The WindFloat project consists of three - 8.4 MW MHI Vestas turbines secured on three WindFloat semi-submersible platforms. Known as the first floating wind farm in continental Europe, WindlFoat is powering 25,000 homes and was the first floating wind farm to utilize full-scale semi-submersible technology.
WindFloat Atlantic is located in water depths up to 100 meters and was developed by the Windplus consortium, which includes EDP Renewables (54.4%), Repsol (19.4%), Engie (25%), and Principle Power (1.2%).
France
Provence Grand Large ("PGL") is France's first floating wind pilot-project. Three Siemens Gamesa 8.4 MW floating wind turbines have been installed in a water depth close to 100 meters (328 feet) at the PGL offshore wind farm site 17 kilometers (10.6 miles) off the coast of Port-Saint-Louis-du-Rhône, which is in the vicinity of Marseille. When completed during the beginning of 2024, PGL will provide 24 MW of clean renewable energy to more than 40,000 households in France.
The three Siemens Gamesa 8.4 MW wind turbines are installed on tensioned line floats designed by SBM Offshore and IFP Energies Nouvelles. Currently, the installation of an electrical connection is underway to transport the electricity to the coast and feed it into the French grid. The Provence Grand Large project is led by EDF Renewables in partnership with Enbridge Éolien France 2 S.à.r.l, a subsidiary of Enbridge Inc., and CPP Investments.
