• 4 min de lectura
• 4 min de lectura
Port Tarragona is strengthening alliances with ports in France and Italy to advance the deployment of floating offshore wind. This week, it participated in the first meeting of the MedWindPorts working group, within the framework of the Offshore Wind Revolution congress being held in Taranto from October 7 to 9. The meeting was attended by representatives from the ports of Marseille-Fos, Sète, and Port-la-Nouvelle (France), Augusta and Taranto (Italy), and Tarragona, as well as the Directorate of Marine Renewable Energies of the Occitania Region, the WindEurope association, and the Magellan Circle consultancy. The meeting allowed for sharing experiences, aligning visions, and seeking avenues of collaboration to respond to the present and future needs arising from the development of the floating offshore wind sector in the Western Mediterranean.
The objective of this first meeting was to share challenges identified in the deployment of wind power and best practices carried out by both Northern European ports, where offshore wind projects are more advanced, and other areas of the Mediterranean. In addition, the need to create a network of ports in the Western Mediterranean capable of offering a joint and aligned response to the needs of a sector that will experience strong expansion in the coming years was discussed.
Likewise, both the working group meeting and the congress served to highlight that more certainty is needed in the deployment of floating offshore wind farms in the Mediterranean, as this will allow for port planning that will respond to the real needs of the sector. The idea of promoting multi-port systems, where each port specializes in specific areas, was also defended, and it was noted that industrialization should be promoted in areas close to hub ports, to take advantage of the business opportunities derived from this emerging sector and the creation of qualified jobs.
The participation in the MedWindPorts meeting and attendance at the Offshore Wind Revolution congress have reinforced the positioning of Port Tarragona as one of the main hubs for floating offshore wind. The Tarragona delegation presented the project to expand the Balearic Dock to accommodate this activity, which will add 22 new hectares to the port area to make it one of the main Mediterranean hubs for the development of this activity.
Likewise, emphasis was placed on the main strengths offered by Tarragona and the Port, both from a technical point of view -proximity to future wind farms, draft, experience, optimal climatic conditions, and available space- and from an economic, social, and political point of view -well-positioned business fabric, qualified workforce, talent thanks to universities, vocational training centers, and research centers, and institutional consensus.
In this regard, it was highlighted that the combination of all these factors allows Tarragona to become a hub port capable of serving the entire value chain of floating offshore wind: from the construction of floating offshore wind turbines and their components, through the assembly and integration of elements and logistics, and up to the maintenance of these large structures.
This same approach was defended on October 2, within the framework of EnerMar, the Sea Energies Congress held in Valencia. Port Tarragona participated in a round table, together with representatives from IDAE and the Port of Castellón, in which the role of ports in the deployment of floating offshore wind was explored in depth.
The head of the Port Management department, Pau Morales, highlighted Tarragona's positioning as a key port in the deployment of floating offshore wind farms in the Gulf of Lion, both in terms of the construction and assembly of floaters and in terms of turbine integration. Morales commented that this positioning and the maturity of the project meant that Port Tarragona was the port on the Mediterranean coast with the best score in the Port EOLMAR call for aid to obtain financing for the construction of new port spaces for activities related to floating offshore wind.
EnerMar also highlighted the need to promote collaboration between ports to provide a joint and adequate response to the needs of a sector that is expected to experience strong expansion in the coming years. In this regard, meetings such as that of the Mediterranean ports working group in Taranto this week are an important step forward in this direction.
