Portugal has kicked off the preparatory process for its first auction of licences to build wind farms off the Atlantic coast by inviting companies to present non-binding declarations of interest by Nov. 14.

The environment ministry said in a statement late on Tuesday any interested parties who formalise their interest will be invited to participate in a dialogue phase to discuss options regarding pre-qualification and bidding models.

In the initial phase, companies must explain which maritime areas they are targeting, their experience in developing wind energy projects, whether on land or at sea, financing model, among other points.

The government has set the capacity on offer in the auction to be launched by year-end at 2 GW in three areas off the country's Atlantic coast.

The floating wind farms will be installed in deep waters where winds are stronger and more continuous, allowing the generation of more power than those fixed to the seabed near to shore or those on land.

Portugal already has a small, 25 MW floating wind project off its Atlantic coast, which is owned by Ocean Winds, a joint venture between Portugal's main utility EDP and French company Engie.

A number of other utilities have earlier shown potential interest in the auction, including Germany's BayWa, the Irish-Spanish consortium IberBlue Wind, fund manager Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, and a joint venture between Portugal's Galp and France's TotalEnergies.

Portugal plans to launch successive auctions for a total of 10 GW until 2030.

(Reporting by Sergio Goncalves; Editing by Alison Williams)