2023-10-12 02:15:12
The three wind turbines installed in front of Port-Saint-Louis-du-Rhône (Bouches-du-Rhône), October 11, 2023. IAN HANNING / PROVENCE GRAND LARGE / CAPA CORPORATE
Invisible from the coast, three wind turbines have stood, since Wednesday October 11, opposite Port-Saint-Louis-du-Rhône (Bouches-du-Rhône), near Marseille. Their blades peak at 174 meters above the sea. A boat is still busy removing at their foot, by crane, the last pieces of equipment used to tow them from the Fos-sur-Mer shipyard to 17 kilometers from the shore.
In appearance, the mills of the Provence Grand Large project, built under the project management of EDF Renewables, look exactly like those inaugurated in September 2022 in the Atlantic Ocean, opposite Saint-Nazaire (Loire-Loire). Atlantic), and to those who are preparing to film in the Channel, in the bay of Saint-Brieuc. But unlike the latter, placed at the bottom of the water, those of Port-Saint-Louis-du-Rhône float. They are the first of their kind in the entire Mediterranean.
Here, the bottom drops very quickly as soon as you move away from the bank, making any traditional foundation impossible. The wind turbines, with a unit capacity of 8 megawatts, therefore rest on an enormous tripod made of steel tubes, whose immobility is ensured by taut underwater lines, hung vertically a hundred meters lower, at the bottom of the sea. water, using buried suction anchors weighted with steel discs heavier than a TGV train. A world first.
Also read our archive (2022): Article reserved for our subscribers How France relies on floating wind turbines to produce its electricity
Technological performance
Director of this pilot project, Christine de Jouëtte does not hide her « joie » you know ” pride “ in front of this technological performance. “We are demonstrating that floating wind power has a bright future ahead of it, with a perfectly stable device that spares the environment, by inducing no friction on the seabed”, she notes. In an economic context made difficult by inflation and rising interest rates, the offshore wind sector is experiencing setbacks in the United States and the United Kingdom, where several projects have been shut down. these last months. In France, stakeholders still firmly believe in the promises of electricity produced with offshore winds, provided that its price drops along the way.
“With us, contracts are indexed to inflation, which makes it possible to manage the long term. Offshore wind power, and in particular floating wind power, remains more necessary than ever to achieve the objective set by President Macron of 40% carbon-free electricity by 2030.estimates Cédric Le Bousse, Director of Marine Renewable Energies at EDF Renewables.
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