Boralex to complete Moulins du Lohan wind project

Boralex welcomes the decision of the Conseil d’Etat regarding the Moulins du Lohan project.

The company will now focus on the completion of this project, which came to a halt in 2017. Boralex will continue to honour its commitments to constructing and operating the wind farm within the Lanouée forest, France, while preserving the distinct identity of this area.

According to the preliminary schedule, commissioning is scheduled for 2024.

Moulins du Lohan description

• Location: Lanouée Forest, commune de Forges de Lanouée, Morbihan, France.
• Technical specifications: 17 4.2 MW wind turbines for a total of 71.4 MW, equivalent to approximately 35 000 French households.
• Winning project for CRE call for tenders in period seven (November 2020). The project has a 20-year contract.

A major public interest project

Brittany is the second-largest wind resource in France and now ranks fifth among French regions in terms of installed wind capacity with apprxoimately 1 GW, or 6% of the national capacity.

The region has also expressed a desire to contribute to the energy and environmental issues facing the area. More specifically, it signed the Pacte Electrique Breton in 2010 which aims to sustainably address the challenges Brittany faces in securing its power supply. The Pacte Electrique Breton has a target of 2.8 GW for installed land-based wind energy.

Lastly, renewable energy production is an objective of the ecological and energy transition law necessary for the region of Brittany. Renewables currently account for only 10% of the final energy consumption in the region. In this context, a project such as Moulins du Lohan is immensely important in achieving the regional and national energy goals.

Environmental exemplarity

The project's impact study includes the reforestation of an area of 12.25 ha. to compensate for the clearing of the 11.4 ha. needed to build and operate the wind farm. As a reminder, the forest of Lanouée is the second largest in the Brittany region with an area of almost 4000 ha. of sylviculture operations. The wind farm project covers only 0.4% of this area.

These reforestations—in addition to preventing a loss of forest surface areas—will be of higher biological importance compared to cleared areas within softwood plots due to the implementation of specific measures to maintain ecological features, such as creating suitable sites for amphibian reproduction. Boralex has also planned measures in the construction phase with adapted operations to protect natural habitats and animal species, such as adaptive forest management promoting habitats and the reproduction of notable species, a measure to protect chiroptera.

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

Energy Global's Spring 2021 issue

The Spring issue of Energy Global features a varied spectrum of in-depth technical articles detailing recent projects, future projections, and technological advancements in the renewables sector, from companies including GlobalData, Atlas Copco, Watlow, QED Naval, TRACTO, AB Energy, and more.

Read the article online at: https://www.energyglobal.com/wind/19042021/boralex-to-complete-moulins-du-lohan-wind-project/