France’s ‘huge step’ in floating wind hailed by WindEurope

The windfarm will be built to the south of Brittany in the Atlantic and will have a capacity of 250 MW.

France will auction two other floating projects of a similar size over the next year. These will be in the Mediterranean, which also has good conditions for floating wind.

Industry body WindEurope hailed the auction as “a big step in the upscaling and commercialisation of floating wind technology.”

Commercialisation will reduce the cost of floating wind as it has done for other offshore wind technology.

The auction has a cap price of €120/MWh (US$141/MWh) and the winning price is expected to be under €100/MWh – much lower than pilot projects for floating offshore wind.

The French Council of State recently ruled that France is ‘not doing enough’ to fight climate change and that it needs to increase its climate commitments. So France needs more offshore wind energy if it wants to reach its climate targets.

WindEurope chief executive Giles Dickson said, “This is a huge step forward, making offshore floating wind more widespread and less expensive.

“France needs to act on its climate commitments and by building this large-scale floating windfarm it is putting itself at the top for floating technology.”