COPENHAGEN (Reuters) – Spain’s Repsol and Denmark’s Orsted are teaming up in a bid to jointly develop floating offshore wind in the nascent Spanish market, the two energy companies said on Tuesday.
Spain has a vast onshore wind fleet but its coastal waters are too deep to install traditional bottom-fixed turbines so it is pinning its growth hopes on floating wind farms, which can be deployed in deeper waters.
“After several years of concept development and small-scale testing, floating offshore wind is now on the brink of commercialisation,” Orsted said in a statement.
Floating wind is still an emerging technology which is more expensive to develop than turbines fixed to the seabed.
The two companies have agreed to “identify and, where appropriate, jointly develop floating offshore wind projects in Spain”, Repsol said in a separate statement.
The Spanish government have announced plans to build up to 3 gigawatts (GW) of floating wind capacity by 2030.
Global competition for offshore wind power has increased in recent years as the established wind players have been joined by global oil majors looking to reduce planet-warming carbon emissions by investing in renewable energy.
Repsol still generates most of its sales from fossil fuels while Orsted, formerly Dong Energy, sold its oil and gas assets in 2017 to become the world’s leading developer of offshore wind.
(Reporting by Stine Jacobsen; editing by Jason Neely)
