Since 2004 GTD is actively involved in the renewable energy sector. From 2006, GTD has been actively involved in the design and development of EOLICAT Project, and which has been just commissioned last week. EOLICAT is a technological demonstrator that provides with a cost competitive, effective and efficient tool and facilitates the implementation to the market of offshore wind farms. EOLICAT has been developed by a consortium of different companies and universities listed below: - STARLAB (in charge of EO data base analysis and provider), - INAVE (in charge of navigation and coastal human activities data), - University of Barcelona (in charge of bathymetry and terrain morphology maps) - GTD (in charge of development of the Geographical Decision Support System). EOLICAT integrates multidisciplinary updated information, pointing special interest towards earth observation satellite data (sea surface wind, currents, surface temperature, and waves), terrain/bathymetric and meteorological information and human/commercial activities that could be relevant boundary conditions for the analysis and management of offshore wind farms. A pre-commercial prototype has been developed for the test-bed area of Catalonia with the purpose of showing the enormous potential in the construction and management operations of offshore wind farms. EOLICAT will become a powerful tool to support the deployment of Royal Decree 1028/2007 of July 20. It establishes three types of areas; two apt for off-shore farms (totalling 86.7% of the shoreline). The Spanish Government has already received requests to build 28 offshore projects totalling 7,350 MW.
