June 15th: Powered Project for the ‘Global Wind Day’

June 15th, is the ‘Global Wind Day’, which aims to support the development of wind energy to increase the use of alternative energy sources, especially clean, while reducing CO2 emissions. This is a priority because we have already exceeded, for the first time since life exists, a concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of 400 parts per million, fueling the ‘greenhouse effect and, in the same time, the global warming and the climate change. This is also the goal of the European project Powered (Project of Offshore Wind Energy: Research, Experimentation, Development), which aims to investigate whether in the Adriatic Sea there are weather, environmental, technical and administrative requirements – adequate winds but also logistical conditions and advanced regulations, possibly homogeneous throughout the area – to make possible the harnessing of the energy of the wind, building offshore wind farms.

A choice that, potentially, allow us to reach, in time, percentages of renewable energy even higher than 50%. From this point of view, has already been developed a map of the wind in the Adriatic sea : the map highlights the areas with the highest wind potential. Soon it will start the installation of anemometer towers (along the coast and offshore) that collect sophisticated meteorological data.

The Powered Project – whose partners are public institutions of Italy, Croatia, Albania and Montenegro – is funded by the European Territorial Cooperation Programme IPA Adriatic. Thanks to the Powered Project, and the cooperation of one of its sponsors, Tozzi Nord, two small wind turbines have been placed in the port of Ravenna. The turbines are measuring, experimentally, the potential production of wind energy in an area of moderate wind. It is a useful step along the way of testing the possibility of fueling port activities with renewable energy, transforming the Italian seaports in modern ‘green ports’.

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