Why X1 Wind's EIC Accelerator Floating Platform Is Not at Sea Yet

Most floating wind designs, X1 Wind argues in its EU project summary, put marinised onshore turbines on platforms adapted from oil and gas engineering. X1 Wind, a Barcelona start-up registered as Exponential Renewables SL, proposes something lighter: a tripod floater tied to the seabed at a single point by taut vertical lines, which turns passively with the wind like a weathervane. In December 2020 the European Innovation Council selected it in the last cut-off of the EIC Accelerator pilot, and the company received a grant of €2,447,841.38 to design and certify its first commercial-scale platform.

The design work was done. What has not happened, six years after the cut-off, is a commercial-scale X1 Wind floater in the water. When the grant was announced, chief executive Alex Raventós said it would speed up "the detailed design and certification" of the company's first large-scale units, according to Offshore Magazine. The pilot those units were meant for has since changed country, size and model name, and its manufacturing is now planned for 2027, according to offshoreWIND.biz.

Where X1 Wind Stands in October 2026

X1 Wind is active and raising money. In September 2026 it closed what it calls its fourth strategic funding round. Grow VP, a venture capital firm specialised in technology transfer, led it and will hold around 8% of the share capital; Avançsa, an investment body wholly owned by the Generalitat de Catalunya, took a similar stake; and existing investors Technip Energies, the EIC Fund and CDTI Innvierte, a vehicle of the Spanish government, converted instruments they had provided earlier, according to Energías Renovables and offshoreWIND.biz. Neither discloses the amount. The Spanish companies gazette records three capital increases inscribed on 5 August 2026 that took nominal share capital from €9,473 to €13,786, along with a new class of shares, according to Empresia.

The company's lead project is NextFloat, which is to install an X100 platform carrying an 8.5 MW turbine at the PlemCat test site off Catalonia. The site's environmental impact assessment was published in Spain's official gazette on 8 July 2026, Riviera reported; no installation date was given. X1 Wind also says it already holds contracts for its larger X150 design on "major projects in Europe and Asia", but it has named none of them, in the Maritime Executive or in the September round announcement.

The Technology: One Mooring Point, No Yaw Motor

Instead of turning only the rotor into the wind with active systems, X1 Wind turns the whole platform, which its CORDIS summary says removes the need for active systems and reduces maintenance. Its PivotBuoy system ties the floater to the seabed at a single point, and the turbine runs downwind of its tower, so wind pressure alone keeps the rotor aligned. The mooring is a small tension-leg design with vertical lines rather than catenary chains, which the company says reduces the seabed footprint and underwater noise.

The claimed advantages are weight and installation time. The current X100 has a primary steel weight of about 1,500 tonnes, which X1 Wind estimates is 30% to 50% lighter than steel floaters of similar scale in European pre-commercial projects, according to the Maritime Executive and Riviera. The company also says its quick connector lets a platform be hooked up or released in one day. These are the company's own estimates; no independent cost comparison has been published.

Part of the idea has been tested at sea. The 1:3 scale X30, carrying a Vestas V29 turbine adapted to run downwind, operated at the PLOCAN test site in the Canary Islands from October 2022 to May 2023 under the EU-funded PivotBuoy project. The consortium reported that the passive alignment tracked the wind better than published data for active yaw systems above 7.5 m/s, that power output matched models, and that the platform rode out storms with maximum wave heights of 6.7 m, according to OE Digital. Those results come from the consortium itself.

What X1 ACCELERATOR Promised, and What CORDIS Shows

The European Commission's list of companies selected at the 7 October 2020 cut-off names X1 WIND of Barcelona, project X1 ACCELERATOR, with blended finance, as the only beneficiary of the project. The round drew 4,200 proposals and funded 38, two of them Spanish, according to Energías Renovables. The grant agreement was signed on 19 May 2021, with the project running from 1 February 2021 to 31 July 2023.

The CORDIS objective was to "develop and complete the detailed design and engineering" of the commercial-scale platform, to de-risk the technology and to "bring the proposed solution to the market". The final periodic report says the X90, a platform for turbines in the 6 MW range, reached basic design by the end of the period, and that DNV issued a Statement of Feasibility, with "the final certification" expected "in the coming months". It also lists tank tests, component tests on the X30, a concept design for a 15 MW X150, plans for manufacturing, installation and maintenance of an X90 pilot, a second patent filing and a new investment round.

1. Design of the commercial-scale X90 platformPartly deliveredCORDIS records basic design at project close, not the detailed design named in the objective.
2. Certification of the designDeliveredStatement of Feasibility by July 2023; the consortium said in June 2024 that the X90 also held a DNV Statement of Compliance.
3. Validation tests and X150 conceptDeliveredTank and component tests and an X150 concept design, per the CORDIS report.
4. First commercial project and market entryNot deliveredNo commercial-scale platform built or installed; manufacturing of the X100 pilot planned for 2027.
5. Private investmentDeliveredTechnip Energies and the EIC Fund invested in February 2022.

On the paperwork, the project ran to schedule: CORDIS gives an end date of 31 July 2023 and the final report covers the period to that day. On the outcome the grant was meant to speed up, the record is thinner. The X90 that X1 ACCELERATOR designed has not been built. The company now presents the X100, a larger platform for turbines of 6 to 10 MW, as the pre-commercial unit, and its basic design received a DNV Statement of Compliance in March 2026, according to the Maritime Executive and a customer story by the software supplier SDC Verifier. The company website now groups the "X90-X150" under the EIC project and the X100 under NextFloat.

A Pilot That Moved

The pilot meant to follow X1 ACCELERATOR has been redefined twice. When the European Commission selected the NextFloat consortium in July 2022, the plan was a full-scale 6 MW prototype at the MISTRAL test site in the French Mediterranean, according to offshoreWIND.biz. The CORDIS record of the Horizon Europe project, coordinated by T.EN Netherlands BV of the Technip Energies group, still describes a demonstration at MISTRAL and a design for a 14 MW system. It gives the project an EU contribution of €15,995,130.36, of which €2,171,123.50 goes to X1 Wind, and an end date of 30 April 2027. No periodic report is published.

In June 2024 a second grant followed: €13.4 million from the EU Innovation Fund for NextFloat+, coordinated by X1 Wind with Technip Energies and NextFloat Plus SAS, for a 6 MW X90 in the Mediterranean, with France 2030 money from ADEME also in the funding stack, according to the consortium's press release. By July 2025 the pre-commercial platform was planned for Catalan waters under PlemCat, the Catalan marine energy test platform, and Avançsa had granted the company a participatory loan as the first step of a €3 million operation in which the Institut Català d'Energia also took part, according to Energías Renovables. In 2026 the unit is an 8.5 MW X100 at PlemCat, with manufacturing planned for 2027 and Spain's RenMarinas programme among its funders, per the Maritime Executive. CORDIS still lists 30 April 2027 as the end of the Horizon Europe project.

The Money Behind the Floater

X1 Wind has been funded largely by public money and one industrial partner. Before the EIC award it received a €50,000 SME Instrument Phase 1 grant in 2018 and coordinated PivotBuoy, a Horizon 2020 project with €3,960,065.25 of EU funding, of which its own share was €1,412,200. In February 2022 Technip Energies, the French engineering group, led a round in which it took a 16.3% stake and two of nine board seats, with the EIC Fund joining, according to Technip Energies. The X1 ACCELERATOR report on CORDIS confirms a round with Technip Energies, the EIC Fund and existing shareholders. The company appears as Exponential Renewables SL on the official list of EIC Fund invested companies, which gives no amount or date.

The register adds detail but no balance sheet. Empresia lists the company as active, with accounts filed up to 2024, an auditor (Faura Casas), annual sales below €500,000, and a board that includes Technip Energies' Willy Gauttier and Julien Grelet and the investor KIC InnoEnergy SE. The filed accounts themselves sit behind a paywall and could not be checked for losses, equity or headcount. The only staff figure is the company's statement in its CORDIS report that the EIC support helped it grow to more than 40 people, more than 30% of them women.

Why Europe Should Care

Floating wind is where Europe's offshore ambitions meet deep water. The Commission's 2020 offshore renewable energy strategy set targets of at least 60 GW of offshore wind by 2030 and 300 GW by 2050, and in December 2024 member states agreed regional goals of 86 to 89 GW by 2030, according to the European Commission. Spain's offshore wind roadmap of December 2021 set a goal of up to 3 GW of floating wind by 2030 and at least €200 million for test platforms and R&D, according to the Ministry for the Ecological Transition.

A lighter floater with less steel and a shorter installation would address the main cost problem of the technology, and X1 Wind's backers reflect that policy weight: two EU research programmes, the Innovation Fund, the EIC Fund, the Spanish state through CDTI and the Catalan government through Avançsa. None of them has yet seen a full-size unit at sea.

The Verdict

X1 Wind has not been asked for comment for this article. It is based entirely on public records, company statements and EU project data, linked throughout.