Bulgaria to host 5-MW Eolink floating wind demo

French floating offshore wind technology developer Eolink today announced the launch of the Black Sea Floating Offshore Wind (BLOW) project which aims to demonstrate a 5-MW floating wind turbine in the Black Sea off the coast of Bulgaria.

The project is backed by the European Commission’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme. Following the signing of a grant agreement at the end of 2022, the 16 project partners held a kick-off meeting in Brussels last week.

The 5-MW unit based on Eolink’s floating offshore wind turbine design is targeted to be commissioned by 2025. It will be designed with a larger rotor in order to demonstrate the competitiveness of floating offshore wind in lower-wind areas.

The unit will be manufactured at the shipyard of Romanian company GSP offshore in Constanta, Romania and will be connected to an existing gas platform operated by Bulgarian oil and gas company Petroceltic. The project partners also include Spain’s Acciona, the Turkish Offshore Wind Energy Association and German research organisation the Fraunhofer Institute.

“Through this project we hope to catalyse offshore development across the region, which already has ongoing fixed-bottom offshore wind projects in Romania,” said Eolink's chief commercial officer Alain Morry.

The five-year project will have a budget of more than EUR 21 million (USD 22.8m). It will start with engineering, environmental and social impact assessment before proceeding to construction.

Eolink’s pyramidal concept uses four steel masts to spread stresses which results in a competitive weight-to-energy ratio and more than 30% lighter structure, according to the company.

BLOW will be the second Eolink deployment after the France Atlantic Project, which is due to be connected to the French grid by 2024.

The Black Sea project will seek to achieve an expected levelised cost of energy (LCOE) of EUR 87 per MWh by 2028 and EUR 50 per MWh beyond 2030.

Acciona Energia became a shareholder in Eolink last year.

(EUR 1 = USD 1.086)

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