Lewis reported on March 1 2024 that a 540-megawatt (MW) hybrid floating solar–floating wind farm is going to be developed off Italy’s southern coast, in the Ionian Sea.
Dutch-Norwegian offshore solar company SolarDuck, Italian investment fund Arrow Capital, and Italian developer New Developments are jointly developing the Corigliano project, which will be in the Gulf of Taranto off the Calabrian coast of Corigliano-Rossano:
SolarDuck is a spin-off of Damen Shipyards, a major shipbuilder in the Netherlands. It’s tapped into that knowledge to design elevated solar platforms made of offshore-grade aluminum that sit 10 feet (3 meters) off the water to withstand rough waters. The elevation also reduces salt deposits on the solar panels. (Floating solar farms on lakes and ponds tend to sit directly on the water.) The triangular floating platforms are modular, so they can be connected to form large plants. Plus, the platforms have slip-resistant walkways and fences for access and maintenance.
The hybrid floating solar–floating wind farm will feature 420 MW of offshore wind and 120 MW of floating solar. It will have 28 floating wind turbines, but SolarDuck’s announcement doesn’t indicate who is developing them. We’ve reached out to SolarDuck for details and will update when we hear back. The Corigliano hybrid floating project is expected to come online in 2028.
SolarDuck is running an up to three-year 5 MW pilot with multinational energy company RWE in the North Sea, 7.5 miles (12 km) from The Hague’s Dutch coast. In December, it secured €15 million in funding, and it’s going to install Japan’s first offshore floating wind farm.
In another project, the World’s first semi-submersible floating offshore wind farm beats expectations in the face of extreme storms:
WindFloat Atlantic – the world’s first semi-submersible floating offshore wind farm 20 km off the coast of Portugal – has now been online for three years and continues to break its own power output records. The 25 megawatt (MW) WindFloat Atlantic project ended 2023 with an electricity production of 80 gigawatt hours (GWh), surpassing 2022’s output of 78 GWh. It supplies power to more than 25,000 households and avoiding 33,000 tons of carbon dioxide.
The offshore wind farm sits 20 km off the coast of Portugal in the municipality of Viana do Castelo, north of Porto. It comprises three 8.4 megawatt (MW) Vestas wind turbines that sit on semi-submersible, three-column floating platforms anchored by chains to the seabed. A 20 km long (12.4 mile-long) cable connects it to an onshore substation.
It’s a joint venture between Spanish renewable company EDPR, global energy firm ENGIE, Spanish energy firm Repsol, and California-headquartered floating offshore wind firm Principle Power.
WindFloat Atlantic was connected to the grid at the end of 2019 and commissioned in 2020. It has an operations and maintenance base in the port of Viana do Castelo, where the team receives the wind farm’s information in real-time so they can address issues immediately. Onsite intervention can be complex, due to adverse weather and sea conditions in the area where it’s sited.
WindFloat Atlantic was robust in the face of Storm Ciarán, which tore through Europe at the end of October and beginning of November last year, thanks to a powerful jet stream that came in from the Atlantic. The floating wind farm weathered wave heights of 20 meters (66 feet) and wind gusts up to 139 km/hr (86 mph).
Principle Power, which also worked on Scotland’s Kincardine, the world’s largest floating offshore wind farm, explains what makes semi-submersible floating offshore wind unique:
"The WindFloat has been developed specifically to achieve exceptional stability performance, while reducing structural weight, and simplifying logistics during installation and operation. The virtual pitch- and yaw-free performance in the offshore environment allows the use of existing commercial offshore wind turbines, located at one of the columns, with only minor modifications to control software."
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