Work begins on France’s first offshore wind farm

Installation of France’s first offshore wind farm has begun, with the first turbine installed on April 12-13 and the remaining 79 scheduled to be in place by the autumn.

The turbines will be installed in sets of four, with each one needing around 24 hours to be completed.

Luxembourg-based civil engineer firm Jan de Nul has been contracted to carry out the installation, with its jack-up barge Vessel Vole loading the turbines in batches of four before transporting them to the Saint-Nazaire Wind Farm 12km off the east coast of France.

Each wind turbine will have a generating capacity of 6MW, so in total the farm can produce 480MW of power, which is 20% of the Loire-Atlantique’s energy needs, Jan de Nul says.

”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,” said Philippe Hutse, offshore director at Jan de Nul. 

After five weeks’ maintenance and preparatory work to the vessel at Belgium’s Ostend, the so-called Vole au Vent arrived at Sainte-Nazaire at the end of March, where she was loaded up with the first four turbines.

Installation of the first one was completed with the vessel’s 1,500-tonne main crane.