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Floatgen - award-recipient at the "Trophées de la Transition énergétique 2017"

The Floatgen project for the first offshore wind turbine in France, which is soon to be completed in the Port of Saint-Nazaire, received the “prix Energies Renouvelables” (Renewable Energies Award) for the 2017 Trophées de la Transition Energétique (Energy Transition Trophy) organised by L'Usine Nouvelle during a ceremony on Tuesday 16 May in the presence of Jean Jouzel, climatologist and former vice-president of the IPCC.

on May 16, 2017

Floatgen, a project with seven European partners:

Ideol: design and provision of the entire floating system (foundation, anchoring system and electricity export cable) as well as the wind turbine; Centrale Nantes: ocean engineering expertise and access to its offshore test site; Bouygues Travaux Publics: floating foundation construction; the University of Stuttgart: participation in the study phase simulations, RSK GROUP: environmental impact analysis; ZABALA project management; and finally, FRAUNHOFER-IWES: comparative analysis of the different floating solutions.

It is supported by the European Union as part of the FP7 programme, by the French Environment and Energy Management Agency as part of the national Investments for the Future Programme, and by the Pays de la Loire region.

More information on www.floatgen.eu
Floatgen, picked up the award at the third edition of the “Trophées de la Transition Energétique”. The project consists in an offshore wind turbine equipped with a floating foundation designed by the French specialist Ideol, built by Bouygues Travaux Publics in the Port of Saint-Nazaire which is to be installed off the coast from Le Croisic at the SEM-REV test site operated by Centrale Nantes.

More than 80% of the concrete shell for the floating foundation has been built to date. The entire anchoring system has been produced and will be installed at sea on the SEM-REV site in June, before the demonstrator comes into service by the end of 2017. Floating wind is the future of wind power. It allows for the development of projects without depth constraints, far off the coast, without visual impact, on the windiest sites. Floatgen bears witness to the reality of the emergence of this sector.

Offshore wind is a fast-growing sector. More than 3600 wind turbines are in operation around the world today, representing a cumulative investment of more than 65 billion euros since 2010.

This new industrial sector has emerged across the world. Except in France, where there are currently no offshore wind turbines. The first one will be a floating turbine: Floatgen.

Whilst France may lag behind on traditional wind turbines, (the fixed offshore wind turbine), it has unique assets to position itself as an international leader on the new floating turbines.

Thus, the solution developed and patented by Ideol (known as Damping Pool®), designed to be the most competitive on the market, marks a technological breakthrough in the offshore wind market and opens up an ocean of possibilities for the development of projects across the world. This technology was selected by the French government to equip the first wind farm in the Mediterranean (Eolmed project with the Quadran energy company) and won export contracts in Japan, the United Kingdom and Ireland.

Published on May 29, 2017 Updated on July 3, 2017