The Floating Wind Working Group, which is coordinated by Saitec Offshore Technologies, met on November 17 to follow up on some of the main initiatives related to the floating offshore wind sector. The session began with presentations by Sener, Saitec Offshore, BiMEP and Tecnalia, outlining their proposals under the RENMARINAS programme, which incentivises pilot projects and testing platforms and port infrastructures for marine renewables. The consultancy firm BMASI then presented the methodology planned for the economic impact study, which is aimed at assessing what floating wind power could mean in the medium term for the Basque Country in terms of generating wealth and employment.

As far as the Basque technology strategy is concerned, the progress made to date was shared, with the members of the group defining 20 technology-related lines of interest in the Basque Country, which in turn fall into four strategic areas, each of which is coordinated by one of the entities.

• Platform Design and Construction, coordinated by Nautilus FS.

• Installation, Operation and Maintenance, co-ordinated by Saitec Offshore.

• Turbine, Mooring Systems and Auxiliary Components, coordinated by Sener.

• Resource and Impact Analysis and Studies, coordinated by ACE.

The final version of the document, which will integrate all of the information gathered, will be drafted in the coming months and is expected to be presented at WindEurope Bilbao 2024.

Finally, the internationalisation activities planned for the coming year were reviewed:

• WindEurope 2024 in Bilbao (March 20-22)

• International Partnering Forum 2024 in New Orleans, USA (April 23-25)

• Mission to FOWT 2024 in Marseille, France (April 24-26)

• Mission to Floating Offshore Wind 2024 UK in Aberdeen, UK (October 9-10)

• 3rd Offshore Wind Congress (date and venue to be determined)

• Business mission to Australia (date to be determined)