Plans for third offshore wind farm in Costa Brava unveiled

Basque engineering firm Saitec has revealed plans to install a 50MW offshore wind farm in the Gulf of Roses, in Catalonia’s northern Costa Brava.

The yet-to-be-approved project known as Medfloat Pilot Parc, which will come into operation in 2025 if greenlighted, is the third floating wind farm to be planned in the area after Parc Tramuntana and Parc Gavina. It is, however, significantly smaller than the other two, which have been met with resistance from a vocal group of local critics.

According to Saitec, Medfloat Pilot Parc’s five wind turbines built 15 km off the coast from the Cap de Creus peninsula at the northern end of the Gulf of Roses would be able to power 50,000 households.

Medfloat Pilot Parc, as its name suggests and as Saitec representatives have stressed, would be a “pilot project”, although the company is already testing the technology in the port of Bilbao in the Basque Country. 

Although 50% of electricity should come from green sources by 2030 and 100% by 2050, it lags far behind other parts of Spain when it comes to renewables due to an overreliance on nuclear power. Currently only 19.8% comes from renewables and Catalonia would have to generate 18 times more green megawatts to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

And while Catalan authorities have signaled support for offshore wind farms such as Parc Tramuntana, which will ultimately have to be approved by the Spanish government, an outspoken group of environmentalists and business owners has voiced concerns ranging from a potential negative impact on fish and bird species to tourism.