©Parc éolien en mer de Saint-Nazaire - Production CAPA CorporateThe first wind turbine has been installed at the St. Nazaire offshore wind farm in France, the country's first. GE Renewable Energy, the manufacturer of the wind turbine, first shared the news via Twitter on Wednesday. Jan De Nul, the company installing the turbine in the northern part of the Bay of Biscay, also confirmed the milestone on Thursday, sharing photos of the installation, too.
The installation is being conducted by Jan De Nul's Vole au Vent vessel which on March 31 arrived at the port of Saint-Nazaire where it was loaded with components for four wind turbines (4 towers, 12 blades, and 4 nacelles) before leaving on Wednesday, April 6 for the wind farm site to proceed with the installation on the pre-installed offshore wind turbine foundations. DEME ƶijϻ is responsible for turbine foundation installation.
In total, Jan De Nul's Vole au Vent will transport and install 80 units of 6 MW Wind Turbine Generators (WTG).
In sets of four, the turbines will be loaded on board of the Vole au vent and transported 12 km offshore, where the 1,500-tonnes main crane of the vessel will mount them on top of monopile foundations. The installation of one turbine takes approximately 24 hours, depending on the weather conditions, so each installation trip will take about 5 days. The very last turbine is scheduled to be mounted in Autumn 2022, Jan De Nul said Thursday.
Philippe Hutse, ƶijϻ Director at Jan De Nul Group: “We are excited to contribute to the further development of renewable energy and offshore wind, in particular, in France. And we are especially proud to support the country in its energy transition by paving the way for the delivery of the first electricity produced by the very first French offshore wind farm. We are also looking forward to working again with Saint-Nazaire ƶijϻ Wind, and to confirm our skills and competencies by making the installation of the ƶijϻ Wind Turbines in collaboration with GE a great success.”
The Saint-Nazaire ƶijϻ Wind Farm will produce 20% of the French Department Loire-Atlantique’s electricity consumption needs and will contribute to achieving the target of 40% renewable energy by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2050 in France.
Being developed by EDF Renouvelables and EIH S.à r.l, an indirect subsidiary of Enbridge Inc., and CPP Investments, the offshore wind farm will have a capacity of 480 MW, with the ability to power 20% of the Department Loire Atlantique.
The wind farm, located between 12 km and 20 km off the coast of the Guérande peninsula in western France, is scheduled to be operational by the end of 2022.