The Spanish Government's Ministry for the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge (MITECO) has published the first official call for applications for the Renmarinas Demos grants, a 240 million euro fund to encourage the creation of test platforms and demonstrations of new prototypes in marine renewable energy. Applications will be accepted from 31 January to 24 March.

The call for applications is one of the actions laid out in the Strategic Project for the Economic Recovery and Transformation of Renewable Energy, Renewable Hydrogen and Storage (PERTE ERHA). This is in turn part of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (PRTR) designed to position Spain as a benchmark in the field of new generation renewable energy.

These grants, managed by the Institute for the Diversification and Saving of Energy (IDAE), is intended to strengthen Spain’s leadership and boost RDI in order to harness the potential of natural marine resources by testing innovative solutions associated with offshore renewable energy solutions in Spain.

Four sub-programmes
The programme is divided into four sub-programmes. The first, with 90 million euros, is aimed solely at research organisations wanting to expand existing test platforms or to create new infrastructure for testing renewable marine technologies. Sub-programme 2 has 60 million euros to fund similar projects, aimed this time, however, at companies, consortia and business groups.

In both cases, this financing is an incentive to create infrastructure for testing, demonstrating and validating prototypes, innovative devices and pre-commercial projects for marine renewable technology in real operating conditions on national offshore public domain land and in waters belonging to the Spanish port service. These include both the commissioning of new test infrastructure inside and outside port facilities and the adaptation or improvement of existing infrastructure for renewable offshore tests.

Sub-programme 3 allocates 45 million euros to technology demonstrators, which are prototypes and technologies for use in floating and fixed offshore wind power infrastructure, wave power, current power and floating solar power, as well as hybrid technologies based on all these. The funds will support innovative projects by technology developers in the offshore renewable energy sector, enabling them to implement and validate experimental models on upgraded or newly created test platforms on Spain’s coasts and waters.

The fourth area of the Programme will distribute an additional 45 million to joint test platform projects and offshore renewable technology demonstrators when both are carried out simultaneously on the same offshore site.

Competitive tendering scheme
The subsidies will be awarded on a competitive basis and will be structured as a non-refundable grant disbursed by IDAE to the beneficiary. Given the innovative nature of this aid, only projects which have not commenced when the application is submitted are eligible. Projects must be completed before 15 January 2026 and must abide by the principle of “not causing significant damage” to the environment.

As well as the specific requirements of each sub-programme, projects will be judged according to criteria such as their compatibility with other activities, including  fish farming, fishing and other offshore activities, ecodesign, job creation and professional recycling, their location on islands or Demographic Challenge provinces and their beneficial impact on the national/European value chain.

When projects include technology demonstrators, grants can be increased by 20% for small companies and by 10% in the case of medium-sized companies.

Offshore energy, an opportunity for Spain
The potential of offshore energy makes it a lever for the national, European and global mid- to long-term energy transformation, as well as being an industrial, economic and social opportunity for our country. It is coherent and compatible with the values of environmental protection and other offshore uses and activities.

Renmarinas Demos is the first step to drive the deployment of offshore renewable energy in Spain as part of the energy mix that will enable it to replace fossil fuels with clean sources and help to fulfil Spain’s commitment to reduce greenhouse gas by 2030. At the same time, the new infrastructure developed will be a significant asset for a strategic sector in Spain and the European Union, having excellent synergies with other equally important industrial and naval sectors.

Spain has a shipbuilding industry (shipyards), a maritime sector, civil engineering capabilities and an industrial ecosystem of materials and equipment that can serve the development of renewable offshore energy. The climate is also ideal for testing solutions designed for different environments and markets. Overall, this context is allowing Spain to aspire to a benchmark position in Europe for testing new prototypes and solutions in the realm of renewable marine energy.

The programme is part of the ‘Roadmap for the development of offshore wind and marine energy in Spain’ for 2030 and for review in 2025, which aims to achieve 1-3 GW of floating offshore and 40-60 MW of fixed production.

^{Source: Ministry for the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge (MITECO)
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