Sener takes part in the zero-emission floating marine substation prototype of the CoEx Green Energies center of excellence of Navantia Seanergies

The Navantia Seanergies stand at WindEurope 2024 was the scene of the launch of its “CoEx Green Energies” Center of Excellence, which was created with the aim of enhancing knowledge and capabilities in the field of green energies.

The event included a round table in which Juan Ramón Ayuso, head of the Wind and Marine Energy department of the Institute for Energy Diversification and Saving (IDAE-MITERD), participated; Javier Herrador, director of Navantia Seanergies; Luis Velasco, director of Support for the Development of Facilities at Red Eléctrica; and Pablo Ayesa, general director of the National Center for Renewable Energy (CENER), all of them moderated by Elena Corrales, director of Collaborative Ecosystem Development at Navantia Seanergies. At this table, the importance of collaboration between all actors in the green energy sector has been highlighted, to accelerate the achievement of the decarbonization objectives of the economy, with innovation and talent as enabling levers for future development. of a competitive, strong, and resilient industry. From this Center of Excellence, projects and initiatives will be promoted for the creation of shared value.

“CoEx Green Energies”, which will have three headquarters, in Fene (A Coruña), Puerto Real (Cádiz) and Cartagena, is part of the Navantia CoEx network of centers of excellence, which represents a firm commitment to research and generation. of knowledge in a collaborative way to promote technological and human capital in all areas of Navantia’s action.

As the first major innovative project of this Center of Excellence, the ECOFOSS project has been presented, led by Navantia Seanergies, which consists of the design of the prototype of a zero-emission floating electrical substation for offshore wind farms, in consortium with Red Eléctrica, Sener, Uptech Sensing, Ditrel Industrial and Ocean Ecostructures.

Representatives of some of the partner companies in the project participated in this presentation: Juan Ignacio Jiménez, Engineering Director of Navantia Seanergies; Luis Velasco, director of Support for the Development of Facilities at Red Eléctrica; and Sergi Ametller, director of Offshore Wind at Sener, also accompanied at the event by Ibon Larrea, director of Production and Technology at Ditrel; Javier Urricelqui, CEO of Uptech Sensing; and Ignasi Ferrer CEO of Ocean Ecostructures.

ECOFOSS, a project co-financed by the European Union with Next Generation EU funds, will allow the design of a completely green substation project, equipped with an energy production plant based on hydrogen technologies, and, therefore, free of carbon emissions. These plants, currently powered by diesel generators that produce CO2, serve to power the auxiliary services of the substation if there is an emergency, that is, when the parks connected to it stop for any reason or during maintenance periods.

This substation will provide service to floating offshore wind farms far from the coast. Its connection will include dynamic power cables that will have an approximate capacity of 400 MW at voltage levels of 220 kV.

With European objectives for floating offshore wind ranging from 25 GW in the medium term and 100 GW in the long term, it is expected that 40 floating substations will be needed in the medium term and around 200 units only by 2050, being the average size of a 500MW substation.