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Iberdrola begins to transfer jackets for French project

By: Tom Russell 16/06/2022 Iberdrola

Foundations General Windfarms

Iberdrola has started transferring the first jackets for its Saint-Brieuc offshore wind farm off Brittany, France, from the Navantia Seanergies shipyard in Fene (A Coruña) where the Navantia-Windar consortium is building these structures to support the wind turbines.

These are the first four jackets of the total of 62 to be installed at the wind farm. The contract for the construction of the jackets was the largest order to date for the Navantia and Windar partnership in offshore wind energy.

The foundations will be transported in a 122-metre-long barge of the company Van Oord. They are expected to arrive at their destination in the port of Brest in approximately three days, depending on weather conditions, during which time they will cover the more than 1,500 kilometres that separate the port of Ferrol from their location in the English Channel.

The delivery of the first jackets demonstrates the completion of the contract signed two years ago, valued at €350 million. The order included the manufacture and assembly of the 62 structures at Navantia Windar's facilities in Brest (France) and Fene and the piles that anchor the wind turbines to the seabed at Windar's facilities in Avilés.

The Saint-Brieuc foundations rest on three legs. Each of them is up to 75 metres high, 25 metres wide and weighs 1,150 tonnes. Iberdrola has for the first time used a hydraulic device called pile grippers to fix these jackets, which it claims provides additional fixation and stability during the installation phase, which is expected to begin in the coming months.

The Saint-Brieuc wind farm will be the Iberdrola group's first major offshore wind power site in France.The 496 MW wind farm, 16 km off the French coast, will feature 62 Siemens Gamesa SG 8.0-167 DD turbines, standing at 207 metres high. It is being developed by Ailes Marines, subsidiary of Spanish energy giant Iberdrola. Covering an area of 75km2 the project will be the first large-scale offshore wind farm in Brittany and, when operational it will be capable of generating 1,820 GWh/year of electricity, expected to meet the demands of 835,000 people.

This new facility demonstrates Iberdrola's commitment to the French market, where the company plans to invest around 4 billion euros by 2025, mainly in renewable projects. The plant will become the company's fourth offshore wind farm in operation, following West of Duddon Sands, located in the Irish Sea; Wikinger, in the Baltic Sea; and East Anglia ONE, one of the world's largest offshore wind developments, located in the southern North Sea.

This contract is the culmination of a relationship of more than eight years between Iberdrola and Navantia-Windar, which totals contracts worth more than €1,000 million, including the award to Windar of the transition pieces for the Baltic Eagle offshore wind farms in Germany and Vineyard Wind 1 in the United States, as well as the orders already completed for Wikinger, in the Baltic Sea, and East Anglia ONE, in the United Kingdom.

Iberdrola stated that the project gives continuity to the employment of Navantia and Windar in their respective facilities, generating 1,250 jobs, both in Asturias and Galicia.

In addition, as a result of this contract, Navantia-Windar has opened a plant in Brest, France, where the 186 stabbings and intermediate platforms of the transition pieces and the lattice structure for 34 of the 62 jackets in the park have been manufactured, creating 250 jobs.

Ibedrola claims that in France, the building of the park creates 1,500 jobs distributed among various companies in France (including 250 at the Navantia-Windar plant in Brest), which means the creation of at least 2,750 jobs between both countries.

For more information on offshore wind farms worldwide, click here.

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Iberdrola begins to transfer jackets for French project

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