Environmental impact assessment of offshore floating wind turbines, a case study in the Spanish Basque Country.
Supervisor: Jesus Mari Blanco (UPV/EHU)
Nowadays, the consumer society and the permanent increase of the energy demand led to a phenomenal increase of anthropogenic greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The arrival on the market of sustainable energies is expected to be a big part of the solution to the current environmental emergency. Offshore wind turbine farms are constructed and joined the network every year. While a lot of studies focused on the economical point of view of the devices, the environmental side remains with many uncertainties. In this document, the potential environmental impacts are determined with a bibliographic review to estimate their importance. In addition, the footprint of the study case is determined with the open-access software OpenLCA. For the chosen devices, the potential impact is expected to be moderate for most criteria, with a higher impact on the benthic communities during the lifespan of the farm. The estimation of the emissions reaches 33.14 gCO2eq/kWh. The study shows that the Spanish Basque coast is suitable for the installation of a floating wind farm turbine. Yet, finding the devices that would harm less the environment, and have a power curve that properly fit the wind, is primordial. The results suggest that even with a turbine not perfectly chosen, offshore wind energy stays more environmentally friendly than a majority of other sources of energy.

Keywords: Renewable energy, floating offshore turbine, environmental impact, life cycle assessment, Spanish Basque Country, innovation.