EDPR generation rises despite lower capacity

EDPR benefitted from a better wind resource in 2019 to boost its generation by 6% year-on-year to just over 30TWh despite its sell-down of 997MW of European wind capacity in July of last year and a further 199MW of US capacity.

by Richard Weyndling 22 January 2020

The first turbine of the 25MW Windfloat Atlantic floating offshore wind project began generating in late 2019 (pic: EDPR)

The company added 749MW of new wind capacity in 2019. This means its total capacity as of the end of December 2019 was 11.1GW plus another 284MW of solar PV.

EDPR also has almost 1GW under construction including 664MW of onshore wind and a 330MW share offshore projects.

Of these offshore projects 316MW relates to the 950MW Moray East offshore wind project in the UK and 16MW to the 25MW WindFloat Atlantic floating turbine array off the coast of Portugal.

The first of Windfloat's three turbines has begun generating electricity, the company announced on 2 January, 2020.

The 8.4MW V164 MHI Vestas machine is the largest ever installed on a floating platform, according to EDPR. The second of Windfloat's three platforms was towed into position at the end of December.

Windfloat's owners, EDPR, Engie, Repsol and Principle Power, are confident the start-up of this project "heralds the opening of an unprecedented range of maritime areas" for development.