Planning the Installation of Marine Renewable Energies in Portugal - a tool for decision making

Abstract

In the latest years, the European governments have developed and published the goals for their countries in terms of energy and climate as requested by the European Commission - The National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs). In this sense, an intense activity on the planning of the installation of renewable energy systems took place in each Member State in order to meet the goals established on the NECPs. Following the recent energy crisis and the urgency to transform Europe’s energy system in Europe, the NECPs are also being adapted to this situation and the installation of renewable energy systems assumed an even higher relevance. In this sense, offshore wind, due to its characteristics – high wind resource, less occupation issues and others – will play a key role in the future energy mix. This work proposed the development and application of a holistic planning methodology considering the available offshore renewable resource, restrictions to the installation of marine energy systems and economic indicators, which resulted in a techno-economic platform – MarinePlan, developed in the scope of a National funded project – OffshorePlan