Galileo and Hope Group, two European renewable energy companies, have formed a joint venture (JV) to develop the offshore wind farm in Italy’s Adriatic Sea. The JV will construct the 1.1 GW floating wind plant, known as Barium Bay, 40 km off the coast, stretching from Barium to the north of Barletta. The Barium Bay offshore wind farm will produce enough clean energy to power more than one million Italian homes. It will feature 74 wind turbines that can produce a total of over three billion kilowatt-hours of clean energy.
The Barium Bay JV is currently conducting all necessary environmental and technical studies, with the goal of submitting an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) application later in 2023. Also, it will start a 24-month campaign to measure wind at sea in collaboration with Eolos Floating Lidar Solutions. Galileo and Hope Group previously created a JV named Lupiae Maris, which was founded to develop a 525 MW wind farm in Apulia, Italy, offshore from Brindisi and Lecce.
In January 2023, Hexicon AB was granted permission to connect six floating wind facilities in Italy with a total capacity of 7.1 GW to the national grid. Reportedly, the permits were granted by Italian transmission system operator (TSO) Terna SpA.
REGlobal’s Views: The Adriatic Sea area is highly attractive for offshore wind development owing to good wind speeds and proximity to major load centers in Italy. The nation needs to ramp up its renewable energy capacity significantly and this large offshore wind project will help the country in this journey. More such projects are expected in the future as Italy emerges as a new favorable market for offshore wind.
