Skip to main content

First jackets transferred for Saint-Brieuc offshore wind farm

Published by , Assistant Editor
Energy Global,


Iberdrola has started the transfer of the first jackets for its offshore wind farm in Saint Brieuc, Brittany, France, from the Navantia Seanergies shipyard in Fene (A Coruña, Spain) where the Navantia-Windar consortium is building these structures to support the wind turbines.

These are the first four jackets of the total of 62 to be built at the wind farm, which will be the Iberdrola Group's first major offshore wind energy site in France. The contract for the construction of the jackets was also the largest order to date for the Navantia and Windar partnership in offshore wind energy.

The foundations will be transported in a 122-m-long barge of the company Van Oord. They will arrive at their destination in the port of Brest, France, covering the more than 1500 km that separate the port of Ferrol, Spain, from their location in the English Channel. The delivery of the first jackets demonstrates the successful completion of the contract signed two years ago, valued at €350 million. The order included the manufacture and assembly of the 62 structures at Navantia Windar's facilities in Brest and Fene and the piles that anchor the wind turbines to the seabed at Windar's facilities in Avilés, Spain.

This contract has strengthened a relationship of more than eight years between Iberdrola and Navantia-Windar, which totals contracts worth more than €1000 million, including the award to Windar of the transition pieces for the Baltic Eagle offshore wind farms in Germany and Vineyard Wind 1 in the US, as well as the orders already completed for Wikinger, in the Baltic Sea, and East Anglia One, in the UK.

Economic driver of local business and employment

The project gives continuity to the employment of Navantia and Windar in their respective facilities, generating 1250 jobs, both in Asturias and Galicia, Spain. In addition, as a result of this contract, Navantia-Windar has opened a plant in Brest, where the 186 stabbings and intermediate platforms of the transition pieces and the lattice structure for 34 of the 62 jackets in the park have been manufactured, creating 250 jobs.

In France, the building of the park creates 1500 jobs distributed among various companies in France (including 250 at the Navantia-Windar plant in Brest), which means the creation of at least 2750 jobs between both countries.

The Saint-Brieuc foundations rest on three legs. Each of them is up to 75 m high, 25 m wide, and 1150 t in weight. Iberdrola has for the first time used a hydraulic device called pile grippers to fix these jackets, which provides additional fixation and stability during the installation phase, which is expected to begin in the coming months.

€2.5 billion invested

The Saint-Brieuc wind farm will be the Iberdrola group's first major offshore wind power site in France. With almost 500 MW of capacity, it will generate enough clean energy to meet the electricity consumption of 835 000 people, once it comes into operation in 2023.

Located some 16 km from the coast, it will cover an area of 75 square km. Its construction represents an overall investment of around €2500 million.

This new facility demonstrates Iberdrola's commitment to the French market, where the company plans to invest approximately €4 billion by 2025, mainly in renewable projects.

The plant will become the company's fourth offshore wind farm in operation, following West of Duddon Sands, located in the Irish Sea; Wikinger, in the Baltic Sea; and East Anglia ONE, one of the world's largest offshore wind developments, located in the southern North Sea.

 

 

 

For more news and technical articles from the global renewable industry, read the latest issue of Energy Global magazine.

Energy Global's Spring 2022 issue

The Spring 2022 issue of Energy Global includes a range of technical articles on energy storage, wind, solar, waste-to-energy, and more. In addition, this issue also features a regional report on the renewable energy market in Asia.

Read the article online at: https://www.energyglobal.com/wind/17062022/first-jackets-transferred-for-saint-brieuc-offshore-wind-farm/

You might also like

 
 

Embed article link: (copy the HTML code below):