Portugal is studying to build its deep waters off the coast into a globally important floating offshore wind power base. It is expected to launch a bidding plan for floating offshore wind power projects with a scale of up to 10GW in 2023. Ahead of this milestone tender, the government has identified six floating offshore wind areas with a potential of up to 11GW.

Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa announced that the country will launch its first tender for offshore wind power in the fourth quarter of 2023 to help Portugal achieve its goal of 10GW of offshore wind power capacity by 2030. Portugal initially planned to hold its first auction in summer 2022, with a capacity of 3-4GW. But by mid-2022, the government announced that the auction would be delayed until 2023 and that the capacity would be increased to 6-8GW.

The Ocean Wind 25MW Windfloat Atlantic floating offshore wind power demonstration project has been installed in Portuguese waters. ) Recently, the Portuguese Ministry of Economy and Maritime Affairs has identified 6 deep-water sites suitable for floating offshore wind power and 2 fixed-based offshore wind power areas. The proposed area for the wind farm was made public as part of hearings that begin before Portugal holds its first wind tender. These areas have a total wind power installation potential of more than 11GW, but most of them come from floating offshore wind power. Six areas have been identified as suitable for floating offshore wind with water depths between 75m and 200m and two areas with fixed foundations at depths of 50m. For floating offshore projects, the shortest distance from the shore is about 10.4 kilometers, and the furthest distance is about 55.6 kilometers. These areas were selected considering energy resources, easement and administrative constraints, and abiotic factors, and to minimize interference with common uses of marine space for local fishing and recreational vessel access. Editor/Xu Shengpeng