DemoSATH: Spain's floating wind test turbine gets another year, with Kumagai Gumi on board

Kumagai Gumi, a Japanese construction company, has joined Saitec Offshore Technologies and Kansai Electric Power Company (KEPCO) on the DemoSATH floating wind project in Spain. The partners have agreed to keep the prototype running at the BiMEP test site through 2027.

DemoSATH is a 2 MW turbine on a concrete twin-hull floating platform (Saitec's SATH design). It sits about 3.2 km off the Basque coast near Armintza, in roughly 85 m of water. The platform was built at the Port of Bilbao and installed in 2023. It sent its first power to the Spanish grid in September 2023. Bureau Veritas gave final prototype certification in September 2024.

In the extra period, the team will use the operating data to study how the platform behaves, improve monitoring and models, and support designs for larger floating farms. Kumagai Gumi will work on better decommissioning methods. It will also look at construction steps that could allow floating platforms to be built in large numbers. The prototype is also used for environmental research, including links with aquaculture.