Ocean Winds has extended its Operations & Maintenance (O&M) long-term contract with Principle Power for the 25 MW WindFloat Atlantic Project, which validates Principle Power’s service excellence and O&M capabilities. This extension further affirms the operational success of the world’s first semi-submersible floating wind farm and first floating wind project to secure bank financing.
Since the project’s first WindFloat® unit was installed in 2019, Principle Power has provided O&M services to Ocean Winds, who oversees the asset management of WindFloat Atlantic on behalf of the project consortium. These services include Inspections, Maintenance and Repair (IMR) activities, with integrated engineering support, to ensure maximum uptime and availability. Additionally, Principle Power has been providing remote monitoring and data analytics services to measure and enhance project performance.
As a result of the close collaboration with the project’s stakeholders, WindFloat Atlantic has exceeded initial power expectations, in its first five years of operations. The project has also proven highly resilient in extreme weather conditions, withstanding 20-meter waves and wind gusts of 139 km/h without any structural damage. Ocean Winds has also coordinated health and safety for all platform operations with Principle Power, resulting in zero lost time accidents.
At Ocean Winds, we are pleased to continue collaborating and extend our long-term contract with our partner Principle Power. Together with the WindFloat Atlantic team, Principle Power helps us deliver a high-quality operational service that prioritizes safety and allows us to consistently exceed the production expectations of this pioneering project each year, demonstrating the readiness of floating technology for the commercial-scale phase.
Daniel Ribeiro — Asset Senior Lead Associate at Ocean Winds
The extended contract further validates the maturity of our WindFloat® technology and highlights Principle Power’s expertise designing and operating floating foundations.
The operational success demonstrated at WindFloat Atlantic highlights our proactive approach to operational readiness – anticipating and addressing critical needs earlier in the design process, and planning for operation activities, tools, equipment, and training. We also refine processes for preventative and corrective maintenance, which has a high degree of impact on the project’s efficiency, and positively affects the project’s financial performance across the lifecycle.
This contract extension demonstrates Principle Power readiness to serve as a one stop shop for WindFloat® O&M services, for the first commercial projects in markets like Korea, the United Kingdom, and beyond.
Clara de Moura Santos — Vice President of Operation & Maintenance at Principle Power
The WindFloat Atlantic project also serves as a research platform for several projects that are advancing the state-of-the-art Inspection, Maintenance and Repair operations. These projects include the EU-Funded Atlantis project, which studies the application of robotic solutions for offshore applications to reduce the levelized cost of energy (LCoE), and the DOE ARPA-E funded DigiFloat project - environmental and structural health monitoring systems to better model, predict, and improve platform performance.
The project’s successful operational strategy, combined with a continuous drive for innovation and efficiency, has established WindFloat Atlantic as a benchmark for performance and reliability in floating offshore wind.
Overview of WindFloat Atlantic
- Project Area: 20 km off the coast of Viana do Castelo, Northern Portugal, in the Atlantic Ocean
- Type of Generation: Floating Offshore Wind Power
- Generation Capacity: 25 MW (8.4 MW x 3 units)
- Commercial Operation Start Date: February 2020
- Cumulative generation: 336 GWh by October 2024
- Electricity Selling Scheme: Combined scheme including Feed-in Tariff
