By Sergio Goncalves
LISBON (Reuters) – Irish-Spanish consortium IberBlue Wind plans to invest more than 4 billion euros ($4.36 billion) in two wind farms off the Atlantic coasts of Portugal and Spain, it said on Tuesday.
IberBlue said in a statement it aimed to create a combined installed capacity of 1.96 gigawatts (GW), enough to supply electricity to over one million homes, at two parks called Creoula, off Viana do Castelo in north Portugal, and Juan Sebastian Elcano, near Pontevedra in Spain.
The parks will have approximately 109 turbines altogether and will occupy an area of 530 square km (205 square miles), with the larger Creoula park having 80 turbines of 18 MW each.
It said Creoula will be located “within the areas proposed by the Portuguese government for offshore wind farm development and will contribute to the target set to install 10 GW of offshore wind by 2030”.
Portugal in January launched public consultations regarding proposals for demarcating offshore areas where wind farms can be built, estimating total investment of between 30 billion and 40 billion euros through 2030.
European nations are betting on renewable energy sources after gas prices hit record highs in 2022 following the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, which was Europe’s top gas supplier.
Portugal aims to generate 80% of its annual electricity needs from renewable sources by 2026, up from around 60% in 2022, which was already one of the highest ratios in Europe.
The consortium estimates that the cost of cross-border development could be 32% lower than if the farms were to be developed separately.
Partners in the consortium are Irish offshore floating wind energy developer Simply Blue Group, the engineering division of Spanish Grupo Amper, and Spanish renewables developer FF New Energy Ventures.
($1 = 0.9166 euros)
(Reporting by Sergio Goncalves; Editing by Andrei Khalip and Jan Harvey)