Navantia is preparing to celebrate its first ten years in offshore wind. Javier Herrador, director of Navantia Seanergies, reviews the company’s plans for the coming years. Offshore wind power has not yet started in Spain.
Are we late?
We still haven’t started but there is beginning to be visibility. At the end of this year it will be 10 years since we entered offshore wind. In 2021 we changed the company and created Navantia Seanergies seeing the growth of the market and its positive trend. We made a total bet. We had an ambition to multiply our turnover by three and we have followed that path. In Spain there is a reality and that is that offshore wind energy is going to be floating. We often forget that second last name and it is key because, to give us an idea, there are 70 GW of offshore wind installed worldwide but less than 300 MW of floating offshore wind. They are demonstration parks and commercial-scale offshore wind has not yet emerged. Companies like us or developers want to accelerate, but we often consciously, and sometimes unconsciously, forget about that reality: floating offshore wind has not yet started on a global level, so we are not late.
Are we still awaiting regulatory advances?
The steps are being taken. The Royal Decree came out and the following will be the Auction Order. Everything seems to indicate that in the coming months it will happen, so we are very much on schedule. And in the meantime we are preparing to make floating technology more viable every day.
Where do you think the first auction will be, in the Canary Islands or in Catalonia?
I think there will be a first auction that may be in the Canary Islands, but I don’t think there will be much delay between that first auction or those first auctions and the rest.
How are they going to face it?
In a few years we will have delocalized development at an industrial level. We are very focused on looking for partners in all areas. Industrial content must be valued to create wealth. There will be some non-price criteria that have to help promoters so that projects are competitive. Furthermore, we also indirectly need it, because there will be such a high demand that, although Navantia has a very important capacity, we are going to need to create a wide manufacturing and assembly chain, which will serve the national plan and everything outside. . We are working on finding production capacity in the Canary Islands.
What will these non-price criteria be like for offshore wind?
There will be two fundamental things, but you have to see how it is ordered and the weight that each thing has. One will be local content. Now, we have to see what we call local, because when we talk about the Canary Islands, what does it mean? Are they companies from the island? Are they Canarian companies? That they are Spanish? You can extend the border. In any case, local is important and we have to take it into account when we give an offer to our clients, so that it is competitive and attractive. And the other point that will be fundamental will be the credibility of the project. We must avoid—and there is a general consensus on this—that projects fail. The auction must be well designed to not allow projects to be presented that have questionable viability, as has happened in France, and that could reverse an ambitious plan like this one.
How are they prepared?
We are already working on looking for companies. We have a very good relationship with the three shipyards or manufacturing centers on the islands, which are potential partners in this sense, and we have been working with them for some time so that when this comes out we can integrate them into the chain. These are centers that currently have no experience in this market, but they are also companies that see offshore wind as very interesting, because not only will it give them opportunities in the Canary Islands, but from there they can expand and enter a market. which right now is totally foreign to them. It is a very good opportunity. We are doing the same thing as we are doing in the Canary Islands in the rest of the geography because, as I told you, first of all, out of self-interest, that is, we alone are not capable of addressing this entire plan because fortunately we have a lot of pipeline abroad. We are sharing our strategic and commercial plans. We have a very open policy, something that is appreciated from the sector but is shocking because there are companies that have a very contrary policy.
We share, of course always with the confidentiality that this requires, our plans. Last year, for example, we held an event in which more than 200 companies were present and many of them did not know us. Since then, we have greatly opened up the knowledge of companies. To give you an idea, in these 10 years that we have been working in the sector, 486 companies have worked with us. Of those, 85% are Spanish. We have mapped potentially collaborating companies and we are already at 625, that is, we have added 150 new companies that can participate in our supply chain. There is a double effort, looking for capacity and reliable and robust companies, which have to provide guarantees. They have to be competitive. Because even though there are non-price criteria, it doesn’t mean that I can set whatever price I want, far from it. You have to be competitive.
How are the growth objectives going?
Last year things happened that caused the market to slow down a little, but the good thing is that we have already come out of this slowdown and we see that we are getting back on track.
What happened?
Basically failed projects in the United States. Very powerful developers like Orsted had to abandon projects because they had negotiated the rate in a pre-pandemic time and the brutal inflation of 2021 and 2022 meant that the business plan did not work out and they decided to abort those projects, pay the penalties and resubmit to the auctions. The market saw it like oysters, wait because if those who are number one have had this “slip”, then we are going to look at things better and decision making slowed down.
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