Portugal's New Government Committed to Developing Offshore Wind

Portugal's new government is committed to developing offshore wind energy and also sees "repowering" onshore wind farms and promoting solar projects, including small-scale ones, as a priority, the environment minister said on Monday.

Maria da Graca Carvalho said the government would announce some details of its offshore wind energy policy in July as investors await guidelines on a planned key licensing action announced last year under the previous administration.

The previous administration had set the capacity on offer in what would be the country's first offshore wind auction at 2 gigawatts (GW). The new government has not said whether it will stick to offering that capacity and it is not clear when the auction will take place.

"Some of our directions (on the policy) will be ready before (the government's) summer break... so in July we will announce news," Graca Carvalho told an energy summit in Lisbon.

Portugal already has a small, 25-megawatt floating wind project off its Atlantic coast, which is owned by Ocean Winds, a joint venture between Portugal's main utility EDP and French company Engie.

A number of other utilities have shown potential interest in the auction, including Germany's BayWa, the Irish-Spanish consortium IberBlue Wind, fund manager Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, and a joint venture between Portugal's Galp and France's TotalEnergies.

Floating wind farms are expected to be installed in deep waters where winds are stronger and more continuous, allowing the generation of more power than those fixed to the seabed near to shore or those on land.

(Reuters - Reporting by Sergio Goncalves and Catarina Demony; Editing by Susan Fenton)