The starting up of the first marine wind turbine in Spain, the Elican prototype that is tested at the trial area of the Canary Oceanic Platform (PLOCAN), in Great Canary, sets the islands and the whole country at the wind offshore worldwide map. This is how it has been highlighted this Thursday by Carlos García, Managing Director of ESTEYCO, the company in charge of this prototype. During the launch ceremony of the project, Carlos García has been accompanied by the president of the Council of Great Canary, Antonio Morales; the Economy regional counselor, Pedro Ortega; Spanish Government Representative for the Canary Islands, Juan Salvador León; and the PLOCAN president, Octavio Llinás; among other assistants.

Carlos García has remarked that this offshore wind turbine is pioneering in the south of Europe with a fixed bottom and the first in the world that is installed with no need of using great and expensive installation vessels. The budget of this R&D project is of 20,7 million euros, and it has a 70% grant from the research programme EU Horizon 2020. Like all prototypes it doesn’t aim for an inmmediate profitability, just to introduce the product, Spanish technology in this case.

The project consists in installing a real scale prototype, with a 5 megawatts turbine at a 30 meters deep location. This has been performed by the consortium Elican, led by ESTEYCO and to whom also belong Siemens-Gamesa, Ale Heavylift, Dewi GmbH and the PLOCAN itself.

In his opinion, starting up the prototype sets a “technological-milestone” worldwide and the company hopes that it can contribute to develop marine wind energy at the Canary Islands, “of great potential” as it gets cheaper and reduces the risk linked to the turbine.

Sources:

La Vanguardia. 28/03/2019. more information

Antena 3. 28/03/2019. more information

Telde actualidad. 28/03/2019. more information

La Provincia, diario de Las Palmas. 28/03/2019. more information