First floating turbine online off mainland Spain

Foundations manufacturer Saitec Offshore technologies has installed and commissioned continental Spain’s first floating offshore wind turbine off the coast of Santander.

Its 30kW pilot installation off the country’s north coast is now operational, the manufacturer confirmed.

The Aeolos turbine is a 1:6 scaled prototype of a 10MW turbine and is mounted on Saitec’s BlueSATH (swinging around twin-hull) floating offshore wind platform.

The platform features two cylindrical and horizontal huls with conical edges braced by a concrete frame, and can align itself around a single point of mooring, according to the direction of the wind and the waves.

Saitec towed the platform from the dock to the installation site about 800 metres off the Cantabrian coast.

It then retrieved the three 150-metre mooring lines – which had already been laid – from the seabed, and connected the platform.

The turbine, tower and floating platform have a combined weight of 50 tonnes, while Aeolos’s turbine has a 15-metre rotor diameter and 17.45-metre hub height.

Saitec’s SATH concept has been validated in several water tank tests since 2014, but not in open waters before.

It is the first floating offshore wind platform to be commissioned off continental Spain. Other floating offshore turbines have been launched off Spanish territories, including the Canary Islands.

Saitec aims to install a larger-scale 2MW demonstration project off the coast of Bilbao by the end of 2021.