STORY / PUBLIC SOURCE RECORD
Around the world with Team Norway: Italy joining the wave of offshore energy
- Published 4 October 2024; updated 30 September 2026; estimated reading time 4 minutes. Innovation Norway Italy’s acting director Mauro Migliavacca says Sicily, Sardinia and Puglia are key areas for offshore wind. Deep water—up to 1,000 metres in parts of the central Mediterranean—makes floating technology the main focus.
- The article says Italian offshore-wind development had been slow because auction rules and subsidy policy were unclear. A decree called FER2, introduced in June 2024, established subsidies across renewable sectors, including 3.8 GW for offshore wind, expected to be almost entirely floating projects. Migliavacca says permit requests exceeded 100 GW, while only 3.8 GW would ultimately be authorised under the stated support volume.
- Aker Solutions won a front-end engineering design contract from Renexia for subsea substations for the Med Wind project. The article describes Med Wind as the Mediterranean’s first floating wind farm, with 190 turbines and 2.8 GW planned. Aker, collaborating with ABB Norway, was to design eight seabed modules—two per project section—at depths of 520–660 metres in the Strait of Sicily to house turbine-array cables. The project was said to be capable of supplying 3.4 million homes and creating jobs in Sicily; these are project projections.
- The article argues Norwegian offshore, floating and subsea expertise could serve Italian projects, covering installation, anchoring, connection and monitoring. It says two Norwegian delegations had brought about 15 supply-chain companies to Italy in the preceding year. It encourages Norwegian developers to partner locally and participate in auctions; the article’s original schedule anticipated the first auction in December 2024 and an application window closing by 2028, which is time-sensitive historical information.
- Linked Norwegian solutions include WindSim wind modelling, GeoProvider subsurface-risk services, Automasjon & Data helideck monitoring and Jotun Baltoflake coatings. The supplier list names DNV (classification/advisory); Fred. Olsen (developer); Kongsberg Maritime and VARD/Fincantieri (maritime and transport/installation); Aker Solutions, Jotun, Siemens Energy and Wind Catching (offshore-wind technologies); and GeoProvider, WindSim, Wise Group and Wsense (services).
- Contact: Mauro Migliavacca, Acting Director, Innovation Norway Italy, mauro.migliavacca@innovationnorway.no. Related industries: Energy and Offshore wind.