“Sener and Bluefloat Extend Strategic Alliance to Australia for Offshore Wind Projects”

Sener and Bluefloat take their strategic alliance for offshore wind to another level. They extend their agreement to Australia, where they will compete with Iberdrola in the first auction in the country, as revealed by the consortium to elEconomista.es. This week he will present his candidacy to develop one of the largest parks in the world, with 2,100 megawatts (MW) of power and a planned investment of up to 6,100 million euros.

They will go hand in hand with Navantia and GRI, belonging to the Basque industrial group Gonvarri, linked to Gestamp. “We invest, but we will go with Spanish companies because in this country we have first-rate knowledge and we want to take advantage of the opportunities for the national industry,” Sener and Bluefloat have detailed.

The Greater Gippsland project, located 10-43 kilometers off the coast of Gippsland (in the state of Victoria), will be promoted together with the Australian company Energy State. It will house up to 139 fixed-bottom offshore turbines, each with a capacity between 15 and 20 MW, as well as two to four substations. In this way, it will generate enough renewable energy to supply one million homes.

The period to request the feasibility license began on January 23 and will end this Thursday, April 27. The evaluation time is estimated between six and nine months, after which the selected projects will be announced. The declared area of ​​Victoria to be bid can support more than 10,000 MW of offshore wind capacity. It covers about 15,000 square kilometers and stretches from Lakes Entrance in the east to Wilsons Promontory south to the west.

Iberdrola has also been developing projects to participate in the Gippslands awards, as stated by the company itself in its quarterly accounts last year. He gigante led by Ignacio Galán wants to conquer the waters of Australia, where it already has more than 1,000 MW of onshore wind, solar and battery projects, boosted by the purchase of Infigen Energy.

Projects in Spain

BlueFloat Energy and Sener created an alliance almost three years ago to develop various floating offshore wind projects off the Spanish coast. The award of the park in Australia means the expansion of the consortium to new geographies.

In Spain, they have three 1,250 MW projects on the table in three autonomous communities. They develop the Tramuntana project in Catalonia, 24 kilometers from the Gulf of Roses and 500 MW of power. In this same area they have also proposed the possibility of carrying out a first phase of 50 MW of a project called Tramlab. In Galicia They want to build the Nordés park, more than 30 kilometers from the coast and with a first phase of 525 MW. while, in Gran Canariawork in the 225 MW Tarahan park.

Initially they sought to promote the Mar de Ágata project, a 300 MW floating wind farm in Levante Almería. However, as this newspaper announced in December of last year, the consortium ended up giving up this initiative after the Ministry of Ecological Transition remove this area from the list of sites for the development of wind power offshore.

The Government approved at the end of February 2023 the Maritime Space Management Plans (POEM), making official the areas in which offshore wind power can be developed according to a list of energy, environmental or sea use conditions. It will be in these displacements where the Government will call the public tenders, scheduled for this 2023, to achieve its objective: to have 3,000 MW of offshore wind power installed by the end of the decade.

He Bluefloat CEO, Carlos Martinand the CEO of Sener Renewable Investments, Miguel Domingo, claimed last week that, when establishing the regulations for tenders in Spain, socioeconomic criteria should have a weight of 30% of the total award. While the remaining 70% must be the sale rate of the energy offered. In this sense, they asked that when awarding the projects, the promoter’s previous dialogue with the territory, transparency, the maturity of the proposal, as well as the contribution to research and technological development, be valued.

Main promoters

Energy and infrastructure companies are taking positions on the starting grid of what will be the race for offshore wind power in Spain. Until now, Cobra (from the Vinci group) is in first place with the projection of almost 3,200 MW in Galicia, Andalusia, Catalonia and the Canary Islands. they follow him railwaywhich wants to obtain environmental authorization for more than 2,700 MW; Iberdrola, with 1,700 MW projects; and Capital Energy, with almost 1,500 MW. The next promoter with the most ambitious plans in Spain is precisely the consortium of Sener and Bluefloat. Other firms such as Iberblue, Abei Energy, FF Renovables, Andamana, the alliance between Equinor and Naturgy, and Acciona, among others, also belong to this group.

In addition to Sener and Bluefloat, in this context they have formed numerous business alliances for development offshoresuch as those of Capital Energy and Shell, Acciona and SSE, Repsol and Orsted, EDPR and Engie or Corio and Q-Energy.