China's Mingyang signs key contract over massive EU floating wind farm
Turbine maker signs FEED agreement with Renexia over Med Wind project that has created waves across Europe
Chinese wind power group Mingyang has agreed a key initial contract over a 2.8GW Mediterranean floating wind farm that will use giant turbines made in Italy.
Mingyang and Italian developer Renexia signed a front-end engineering design (FEED) agreement over the Med Wind project, which aims to deploy the Chinese group’s 18.8MW turbines 80km off the coast of Sicily.
The prospect of Chinese machines equipping such a large project in EU waters fuelled fears among the domestic European industry over the potential impact of large-scale competition from China.
The signing of the FEED deal, which kicks off initial scoping and design work for Med Wind, came as Italian minister of economic development Adolfo Urso, president of MingYang, Zhang Chuanwei, and Riccardo Toto, general manager of Renexia, held further talks over the planned co-operation.
The three confirmed that they soon expect to name a site for the turbine plant, which would employ about 1,100 people following an initial investment of around €500m ($546m).
Mingyang – the most ambitious of China’s OEMs in terms of breaking into European offshore wind – has also been linked with a plant in Scotland and lined up for a project off Germany.