go-to-areas

GEK Terna and the Copelouzos group are joining forces for common survey work concerning two respective pilot-project offshore wind farms close to Alexandroupoli, in the country’s northeast, energypress sources have informed.

The two corporate groups have decided to merge their survey efforts for these projects as their respective production licenses concern the installation of offshore wind facilities in Alexandroupoli’s same wider offshore area, marked out by the government, following a recommendation by the relevant authority, EDEYEP, the the Hellenic Hydrocarbons and Energy Resources Management Company.

The pilot offshore wind farms to be installed off Alexandroupoli will offer a total capacity of 600 MW, slightly below the sum of two separate production licenses held by GEK Terna and the Copelouzos group, for 485 MW and 216 MW, respectively.

The synergy between the two groups concerns geophysical and geotechnical studies on the composition of the seabed, collection of wind data, as well as studies related to the logistics chain and an electrical interconnection that will be built in order to transfer energy produced to the land and the transmission grid.

The two groups expect their joint survey effort to be completed within 12 to 16 months from now. They aim to launch both offshore wind farms before the end of this decade.

The projects will be developed through an EU go-to-areas scheme designed to accelerate green-energy project development as a means of ending Europe’s reliance on natural gas as soon as possible.

Offshore wind farms planned to be introduced in Greece as a pilot program off Alexandroupoli, in the country’s northeast, will be developed through an EU go-to-areas formula designed to accelerate green-energy project development as a means of ending Europe’s reliance on natural gas as soon as possible.

A local draft bill incorporating this European formula, which has been adopted in Greece for the first time for the Alexandroupoli offshore wind farms, was submitted to Greek Parliament yesterday as a “RES First Choice Areas” initiative.

As stipulated in the draft bill, RES priority areas must be located beyond areas offered environmental protection through the EU’s Natura 2000 network. In addition, these areas will be approved by Presidential Decree.

Go-to-area RES projects will be exempted from the environmental permitting process and a special ecological assessment procedure.

For the time being, Alexandroupoli is Greece’s only area to have been awarded RES priority status.

GEK Terna, Copelouzos join forces for offshore wind farm studies

Alexandroupoli offshore wind farms given RES priority status