In the year 2005, I was offered the chance to attend the first major conference organised by the EWEA (European Wind Energy Association) for the then budding “Offshore Wind” market in Copenhagen. At the time, there were only a couple of hundred “delegates” and the total installed capacity only amounted to a few hundred megawatts worldwide. From the outset, I was fascinated by the harshness of the offshore environment and the possibility to taking energy to areas that had been inconceivable until then. I have to admit, challenges make me feel like a child in a sweet shop!
In the three years after that, I was able to train and collaborate with my colleagues from Iberdrola Renovables on the development of one of the first offshore wind projects on our coasts. In the first two of those years, I combined these tasks with coordinating the international group for wind power engineering that supported the incredible international expansion of Iberdrola Renovables: the U.S., Brazil, Mexico, Poland, Italy, France, Greece, England, Wales, Scotland, etc. At the end of 2007, I was offered the chance to devote myself exclusively in Iberdrola Engineering to developing the knowledge needed to tackle this market in the medium term, a proposal that I immediately accepted.
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We launched an in-house training programme which lasted 18 months that enabled us to continue supporting Iberdrola´s renewables area and at the same time investigate where the future of the offshore renewable market might lie. It was obvious that if we really wanted to lead this market in the medium to long term, we would have to float. And if we wanted to float, we were going to need experts in the field, such as naval engineers. Since life is an extraordinary string of coincidences, we got to meet Luis Ramón Núñez (currently Director of the High Technical School of Naval Engineering, ETSIN), who gave us access to the School of Naval Engineering in Madrid, their working groups and testing facilities. Most importantly of all, he put us in contact with several top-notch professionals, with whom we started to analyse the various types of floating solutions available.
In early 2009, Luis Ramón introduced us to the people at Innovamar Foundation and we were given the chance to coordinate the Offshore Renewable Energies Group, which then led to the launch of a major Innovation project. This project was called Ocean Lider and it was definitely the most important project in the world as regards R&D in the sector. This enabled us to make the most of two amazing opportunities: on the one hand, to learn about generating electricity from waves and tides and combining generation systems with offshore wind power; and on the other, to intensify the development of our floating technology and make it unique.
Ocean Lider has been successful from the very beginning and at every stage: from approval by the Centre for Industrial Technological Development (CDTI), to its completion between 2009 and 2013 and the subsequent dissemination of the results achieved. The project focused on developing the technology needed for the large-scale application of oceanic renewable energies (waves, tides and wind), particularly in a floating environment. The work involved the collaboration of up to 20 companies and 25 centres for research and universities.
The results of this initiative are spectacular and many of the technologies developed are now being applied in productive projects undertaken by the companies that took part. Iberdrola Engineering is no different in that regard, as the solutions developed are now being implemented in Iberdrola projects. More importantly, the initiative boosted the development of our floating technology with a streamlined design and testing methodology, a software tool (which combines the effects of the wind and the sea), a TLP (Tension Leg Platforms) system for offshore wind turbines and two ad hoc installation systems that will allow us to tow out the floating wind turbines already assembled from the coast.
The next step should be to try out this technology in a full scale setting and be able to help our colleagues at Iberdrola´s Renewables Division to develop deep water projects. It will also be possible to collaborate with the offshore renewable industry on bringing down the overall cost of producing the “megawatt of the future”. After all, that is one of the main goals of innovation in the energy sector, wouldn’t you agree?
