Ocean Winds, Banque des Territoires to Jointly Bid for French Floaters

Ocean Winds and Banque des Territoires have joined forces to respond to France’s A06 tender for floating offshore wind sites in the Mediterranean Sea.

Under the A06 tender, two sites for floating offshore wind will be developed, each with a planned installed capacity of about 250 MW with potential extensions leading to a total capacity of 1.5 GW.

Ocean Winds and Banque des Territoires confirm their participation in the A06 tender and reinforce their wish to contribute more massively to the national ambitions aiming to accelerate the energy transition, in particular through the development of offshore wind in France, the partners said.

“Banque des Territoires is delighted to confirm this commitment to contribute to the deployment of floating offshore wind power on a commercial scale. We believe that this innovative technology is one of the keys to achieving national renewable energy production objectives”, said Emmanuel Legrand, Director of the Energy and Ecological Transition at the Investment Department of Banque des Territoires.

The call for tenders for developing two floating offshore wind farms in the Mediterranean Sea was launched in March last year, a month after French President Emmanuel Macron announced a target of 40 GW of offshore wind power by 2050.

The winners will be selected in 2023 and the two wind farms are expected to be commissioned in 2030.

In total, France plans to spend up to EUR 300 million to support the development of the floating offshore wind industry as part of the France 2030 initiative.

When it comes to Ocean Winds and Banque des Territoires, the two companies already joined forces on the Dieppe Le Tréport and Îles d’Yeu and Noirmoutier offshore wind farms and, since 2016, on the Éoliennes Flottantes du Golfe du Lion (EFGL) floating offshore wind pilot project, which is currently under construction.

This joint response to the A06 allows the mobilisation of the Banque des Territoires on the national territory in the service of the energy transition to be combined with Ocean Winds’ pioneering expertise in floating offshore wind energy.

According to the partners, this expertise from Ocean Winds is based on WindFloat Atlantic, the first semi-submersible offshore wind farm in operation since 2020 north of Portugal, the EFGL project in the Mediterranean, and four floating projects accumulating 5.6 GW in development in Korea, the UK, and the US.

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