Principle Power awarded a High Commendation in the Offshore Developer of the Year category at the 2021 Wind Investment Awards

Emeryville, CA; Aix-en-Provence, France; Lisbon, Portugal, May 20, 2021 – Principle Power, the leading global technology and services provider for the floating offshore wind energy market, has been awarded a High Commendation in the Offshore Developer of the Year category at the second edition of the Wind Investment Awards, demonstrating the company’s commitment to unlocking the full potential of the ocean to provide clean, inexhaustible energy to the world by enabling responsibly sited floating offshore wind projects to harvest the best wind resources worldwide. 

This award directly correlates with the commissioning of the WindFloat Atlantic project in summer 2020 by Principle Power and its partners in the WindPlus consortium. This groundbreaking project located 20 km offshore Viana do Castelo, Portugal and installed amidst a global pandemic marks several world firsts, including the first full-scale project to use semi-submersible technology, the first floating wind farm in continental Europe, and the first floating wind farm to secure bank financing. Comprised of three WindFloat® units hosting 8.4 MW Vestas V164 wind turbines, this project represents a key step in the industrialization of floating offshore technology. 

Meanwhile, our teams continued to work in multiple locations in Spain, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, as well as office and virtual locations, to deliver the Kincardine Offshore Wind project located 15 km off the coast of Aberdeen, Scotland, which will be the largest floating wind farm in the world when completed in 2021. Principle Power has also secured exclusivity to supply the WindFloat® to commercial-scale projects totaling 3.8 GW across the world: the US, Europe, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, and China. The WindFloat® is enabling a new industry with vast potential: according to the International Energy Agency, floating turbines could unlock enough potential to meet the world’s total electricity demand 11 times over in 2040. 

The annual Wind Investment Awards is a platform to celebrate best practices in the global onshore and offshore wind industry, incorporating innovation, financing, project development, and asset management. 

Aaron Smith, Principle Power’s Chief Commercial Officer, said: “We’re honored to once again see our work recognized by so many of our industry peers at the Wind Investment Awards, particularly given the many other extraordinarily accomplished nominees within this category. This award reinforces our heartfelt commitment to our mission of providing the most competitive, safe, reliable, and environmentally friendly floating offshore wind solution, the WindFloat®, which is helping to make floating wind a reality around the globe, thus contributing in a major way to accelerate the global energy transition.” 

Adam Barber, Managing Director of Tamarindo Group, the parent company of A Word About Wind, said: “It’s been a challenging 12 months for the sector, and the world at large. Which makes it feel even more appropriate to recognize and celebrate the passion, hard work, and success of businesses and individuals who have been making an authentic difference within our industry. We congratulate them all and will continue to play our part in empowering people in the sector to build a cleaner and fairer world.” 

The 2021 Wind Investment Awards ceremony was held virtually on May 20, in conjunction with the Financing Wind Europe conference. Click here to find out the full list of winners.

About Principle Power 
Principle Power is a leading global technology and services provider for the floating offshore wind energy market. 
Principle Power's globally patented and proven floating platform technology, the WindFloat®, enables offshore wind turbines to be sited in any water depth or seabed condition, unlocking offshore wind potential worldwide and allowing projects to harvest the best wind resources. 
Principle Power acts as a trusted partner to developers, independent power producers, utilities, and EPCI contractors, by supporting these customers throughout the entire lifecycle of their projects, being present from early development support, overall system design throughout fabrication, installation, commissioning, operations, and decommissioning. 

About A Word About Wind 
A Word About Wind is a rapidly expanding international membership community that provides intelligence, insight, and connections to senior decision-makers working on the financial side of the wind industry. 
Our community of over 6,500 C-suite, director, and board-level individuals represent the very best finance houses, private equity investors, consultancies, developers, and law firms in the world. Through our program of email briefings, bespoke reports, and impartial industry analysis, together with a growing program of exclusive members-only networking initiatives and events, we influence, educate and inform the people that drive and shape international wind energy. 
Membership enables our community to make better-informed business decisions, deepen industry knowledge, benefit from concise, informed deal information and ultimately get the inside track on what’s happening in wind.