Path discussion for offshore wind in Portugal up to 2030 22/02/2019
Miguel Amaral and Nuno Arantes-Oliveira from IN+, together with Mário Vieira, Elsa Henriques and Luís Reis from IDMEC have recently lauched the paper Path discussion for offshore wind in Portugal up to 2030, for Marine Policy, the leading journal of ocean policy studies.
Abstract:
Offshore wind is, nowadays, an emerging renewable source in Europe, with strong capacity potential due to the generalized high wind-levels at the open sea. Because solutions for this wind energy extraction are complex, its implementation differs from other renewable energy technologies, as it requires synergies between different industries, agents and actors. Portugal's offshore wind resources have been the home for two different EU funded projects on the deployment of demonstration prototypes for innovative foundation solutions and further projects are currently on the pipeline. However, Portugal has ocean conditions that differ from those of the Northern Seas, raising considerably different technological challenges. The present authors propose a strategic path that better fits the Portuguese socio-economic environment and discuss the consequent opportunities, challenges and bottlenecks that need to be addressed for that specific path. A thorough bibliographic review was made to the current literature and in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted to relevant actors of the field. The suggested path may generate considerable investment on new capacity additions and economic benefits for the industry's added value, as well as more than 20,000 jobs.year by 2030.
