Government considering offshore wind farm along coast

  • Lusa
  • 12 May 2023

"The technical work is underway so that the auction can take place with the security that we all need and necessarily involving the local units in this effort that is shared by all".

Portugal’s secretary of state for energy, Ana Fontoura Gouveia, said in Maia the government was considering the WindFloat Atlantic project in Viana de Castelo, transforming wind into energy along the national coast.

“It is a possibility that we can see up and down our coast, with many benefits for the country, bringing us clean, reliable energy, at increasingly competitive costs, and benefit to all the Portuguese,” she said of the world’s first semi-submersible floating maritime wind farm.

Speaking after a trip to the EDP project off the coast of Viana do Castelo, which she made in the company of European Commissioner for Energy Kadri Simson, Gouveia said the government was “extremely committed” to this type of project.

“This is the way to continue our capacity to generate renewable energy”, she said and recalled that this year the government would “launch the first auction of the 10 gigs” that it wants to achieve “by 2030”.

“The technical work is underway so that the auction can take place with the security that we all need and necessarily involving the local units in this effort that is shared by all”.

Gouveia also assured that “in the transition to renewable energy, Portugal is managing to take advantage of European funds” and that this “is part of the effort that the country has made of energy and climate transition”.

“We have many investments in RRP [Recovery and Resilience Plan], and the new instruments that are being created are also taken advantage of by Portugal, by our industry,” he said before emphasising that national industry “is in a leading position, very well prepared to take advantage of these resources and thus contribute to the economic growth of the country.”

The trip from the Maia airfield was also attended by the chief executive of EDP, Miguel Stilwell d’Andrade, who said that WindFloat Atlantic is “a commercial project, with three turbines, 25 megawatts, which produces energy capable of supplying 25,000 families”.

“This is a three-year operational project that we want to see if we can make it grow,” he added, noting that this “depends on the plans for the Portuguese economy”: “I know that the Portuguese government is working on it and on the areas where it may be possible.

The European Commissioner, Kadri Simson, said “new sources of energy, from solar and wind, on land and at sea” are a necessity for everyone.

“We are ready to support projects like the one we have seen today and which has also been supported by the European Union,” she said, underlining the work being done at EU level on “research and innovation”.