EDF Energies Nouvelles and wpd offshore, two key players in European offshore wind energy, have announced the signing of a partnership agreement.
France has officially moved ahead with a second round of tenders for offshore wind farms, thorough which it seeking 1 gigawatt of new capacity. First announced in September by Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault and confirmed in January by French Minister of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy Delphine Batho, terms of the tenders were officially published Friday by the Commission for Energy Regulation, or CRE.
The tender calls for about 200 wind turbines off the French coast for a total installed capacity 1 gigawatt, joining a first tender released last year, which will result in the building of nearly 2 gigawatts of wind turbines in the Pays de Loire, Brittany, Normandy and Upper Normandy
The government asserts the tender will trigger $4.5 billion in energy company investments and provide 10,000 direct jobs.
A first round of offshore wind power tenders launched in 2011 under the former government of French President Nicolas Sarkozy resulted in 2 gigawatts of bids going to a consortium led by French power giant EDF, wind turbine manufacturer Alstom and Denmark’s DONG Energy.
The new tender is split into two wind farms — one would be built off the city of Le Treport in Normandy with the other near the islands of Noirmoutier and Ile d’Yeu islands off the Vendee department of the Pays de Loire along France’s Atlantic coast.
The area off Le Treport covers 68 miles while the Pays de la Loire site covers 50 miles, which each expected to generate 480-500 megawatts of power.
The Treport region also figured in the first round but was rejected because the projected price of electricity generation was considered too high.
The agreement formalizes both groups’ decision to combine their expertise in the French government’s second call for tenders, with a view to continuing the development of offshore wind energy in France and pursuing the ambitious industrial project initiated with Alstom (Paris:ALO), the exclusive partner for the supply of wind turbines.
With the first success in the tender launched by the government in 2011, EDF Energies Nouvelles and wpd offshore demonstrated their ability to join forces to provide solid, efficient projects that take the territories’ economic and environmental challenges into account. With this second tender, the partners are thus strengthening their commitment to support a French offshore wind energy industry.
EDF EN and wpd offshore pursue the alliance forged with Alstom in 2011 for the supply of Haliade(TM) 150 — 6MW turbines manufactured in France at Alstom’s four future plants in Saint-Nazaire and Cherbourg. The partners will be able to expand the breadth and depth of the industrial project initiated at the time of the first tender, thereby coming closer in case of success to the critical size required to sustain this industrial sector over the long term.
EDF Energies Nouvelles is a global leader in renewable energies, and today a referenced operator in offshore wind energy with more than 277 MW currently under construction and approximately 2,500 MW under development.
With nearly 10 years of experience in delivering large-scale offshore projects, EDF EN brings expertise from two major projects: C-Power, a 325 MW offshore wind farm in Belgium with 215 MW already commissioned and the 62 MW Teesside project in the United Kingdom due to be completed in June 2013.
EDF EN thus reinforces its skill in management of offshore wind farms’ development and demonstrates its ability to mobilise partners around such projects. In France, the company is leading three projects: Fécamp, Courseulles-sur-Mer and Saint-Nazaire, which represent nearly 1,400 MW and several years of technical studies and consultation. In the United Kingdom, the Group is a co-shareholder in the Navitus Bay project, one of the largest projects in the world with a capacity of 1,100 MW.
wpd offshore is a leader in European wind energy with a portfolio of 18 projects in 6 countries, 8 of which have obtained all the construction permits for a total capacity of 2,500 MW. The group’s first achievements are located in Germany, notably with Baltic I, the first offshore wind farm in the Baltic Sea with a capacity of 48 MW. More recently, wpd offshore launched the construction of the Butendiek project in Germany, encompassing 80 offshore wind turbines in the North Sea for a capacity of 288 MW.
In France, wpd offshore has developed since 2007 numerous seaboard projects along the English Channel and the Atlantic, particularly in the area off the coast of the islands of Yeu and Noirmoutier proposed in the second call for tenders, as well as the sites of Fécamp and Courseulles-sur-Mer, awarded in the first invitation to tender, in which wpd is a shareholder.
With this partnership, the two Groups will pool their know-how and their human and financial resources through a joint company in which EDF Energies Nouvelles will hold a controlling interest. The partners aim to develop a technically and financially competitive bid for the second offshore wind energy call for tenders launched by the Government. They will rely on the agreements signed with Alstom to propose a 6 MW French-made wind turbine especially designed for offshore wind farms. Alstom’s Haliade(TM) 150 — 6MW offshore turbine, specifically developed to meet the strict constraints imposed by the marine environment, is one of the largest and most powerful in the world. Simple, robust and efficient, the turbine is capable of supplying power equivalent to about 5,000 households per unit.
“We are very pleased to partner with a recognised European player in the field of offshore wind energy. The expertise of wpd offshore in project development and its knowledge of local challenges, associated to our industrial know-howas well as our experience as a green electricity producer are decisive advantages”, declared Yvon André, COO of EDF Energies Nouvelles. “After several years of working together, we can capitalise on our day-to-day collaboration and mutual trust to build a reliable bid for the French government’s second tender “.
“We are delighted that the partnership will continue, as it flows naturally from our fruitful association during the first call for tenders”, added Vincent Balès, CEO of wpd offshore France. “We are benefiting from the creation of mixed development and engineering teams dedicated to the French projects and already established work modes. This solid organisation gives us a head start and allows us to concentrate on developing a competitive bid. We are relying on our complementary expertise, which has been considerably consolidated on both sides in the last two years, thanks to new offshore wind farms completed in Europe by the two groups”.
“After winning the first tender alongside EDF Energies Nouvelles and wpd offshore which share our vision and ambitions for the development of offshore wind energy, we are proud of this collaboration which reflects our partners’ confidence in the Alstom technology. This will allow further strengthen the ties created since the beginning of our partnership”, declared Jérôme Pécresse, President of Alstom Renewable Power. “Having obtained the power curve certification of our Haliade(TM) 150 – 6MW in early May, we will be in a position to supply the most efficient offshore turbines on the market today”.
wpd Offshore is a developer-producer of renewable energies, present in 20 countries across the world. Founded in 1996, with more than 850 employees, the wpd group has installed more than 1,500 onshore wind turbines and is now developing 10 GW of offshore wind farms, i.e. more than one and a half times the French targets for 2020. Among the 10 GW, 8 projects have already received their authorisations (5 in Germany, 2 in Sweden, 1 in Finland), for a combined capacity of 2.5 GW and 2 projects (Fécamp and Courseulles-sur-Mer) were awarded within the scope of the first French call for tenders. Operating in Europe and North America, EDF Energies Nouvelles is a market leader in green electricity production, with 5,372 MW of gross installed capacity worldwide. Its development is focused mainly on wind and solar photovoltaic energy. EDF EN is expanding its business in offshore wind energy and recently entered new promising markets: Israel, Morocco, South Africa and Poland. The Company is also present in other segments of the renewable energy market: marine energy, biogas, biomass and small hydro as well as in distributed energies. EDF EN manages renewable energy projects’ development and construction as well as operation and maintenance for its own account and for third parties. EDF Energies Nouvelles is a subsidiary of the EDF Group and its renewable energy arm.
Alstom is a global leader in the world of power generation, power transmission and rail infrastructure and sets the benchmark for innovative and environmentally friendly technologies. Alstom builds the fastest train and the highest capacity automated metro in the world, provides turnkey integrated power plant solutions and associated services for a wide variety of energy sources, including hydro, nuclear, gas, coal and wind, and it offers a wide range of solutions for power transmission, with a focus on smart grids. The Group employs 93,000 people in around 100 countries. It had sales of over EUR20 billion and booked close to EUR24 billion in orders in 2012/13 www.alstom.com