New giants at sea
Operating 20 km offshore Viana do Castelo, Portugal, three giant wind turbines stand tall at 185 m above the ocean surface. These 8.4 MW wind turbines are sited on top of three WindFloat® platforms, which are anchored to the seabed 100 m below with a catenary mooring line.
This innovative project marks several world firsts, including the first full-scale project to use semi-submersible technology, the first floating wind farm in continental Europe, and the first floating wind farm to secure bank financing. The WindFloat Atlantic project is powering 25,000 homes with clean, renewable energy.
First power
2020
Project capacity
25 MW
Wind turbine
Vestas V164
Wind turbine capacity
8.4 MW
Design life
25 years
Distance to shore
20 km
Water depth
100 m
Project sponsors
Ocean Winds, Repsol, Principle Power
Financing
European Investment Bank, €60 million loan
Certification
American Bureau of Shipping, DNVGL
The value of experience
The WindFloat Atlantic project was built on the foundation of the WindFloat 1 project, which generated power for five years in extreme Atlantic Ocean conditions at a site just 50 km to the south.
This proven track record provided the WindPlus consortium, banks, and suppliers the confidence to take the next step in floating technology: a project with a 25-year business case, featuring the largest commercially available wind turbines and a host of other technologies to enable future commercial scale floating wind projects.
WindFloat Atlantic has been operating since 2019 and is generating valuable empirical data that we use to refine our models and processes towards further optimizing the next generations of the WindFloat® technology.
These operational insights are already being incorporated into the design process for application in large commercial scale projects, further reducing cost and risk.
Related news
The WindFloat® advantage
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