EDP invests €1.5Bn in offshore energy
Portugal’s energy giant EDP is to invest €1.5Bn in offshore wind energy.
It will do this through Ocean Winds to provide up to 17 GW of reenable capacity in the ocean.
According to the news agency Lusa, EDP’s CEO Miguel Stilwell d’Andrade, said: “We are going to invest around 1,500 million euros in renewable projects by 2025, this is EDP’s share, so Ocean Winds, as a whole, has our partner [Engie] who then invests the other half and this can represent up to around of 17 GW, 17,000 megawatts, of renewable capacity in the ocean”.
Ocean Winds (OW) is the result of a joint venture announced in 2019 and controlled by EDP Renováveis and ENGIE. The new business, headquartered in Madrid, will act as the exclusive investment vehicle of both companies to capture marine wind energy opportunities worldwide. OW is the first brand to be created using the sound of the wind on the high seas.
OW incorporates the consolidated assets and marine wind pipelines of both companies, with a total of 1.5 GW under construction and 4 GW in development. The new business, with a clear objective of becoming the global leader in its segment, has also set a goal of 5 to 7 GW in operation or under construction, plus 5 to 10 GW in the advanced stages of development by 2025.
“Offshore wind is clearly one of the areas that is growing the most, it is becoming more difficult t make onshore wind, even for environmental reasons and, sometimes due to some resistance by local communities, and in this sense offshore has much more potential”, said the EDP leader.
Of the total forecasted offshore wind capacity, around 5GW to 7GW of projects are already in operation or under construction to 2025, in Scotland and Belgium, for example.