Qair, BW Ideol and TotalEnergies have started construction of three floating wind turbines for the 30MW EolMed project in France.
The arrival of the first steel blocks that will make up the three floating substructures marked the start of the construction of the turbines in the port of Port-La Nouvelle.
Construction is expected to take around 18 months and involve 250,000 hours of work, 150,000 of which will be spent on welding in the port.
The steel blocks were made in Bagnac sur Célé by Archimed, a company created by the merger of the French companies Matière and Ponticelli, and will be welded together like a giant construction set.
The Port-La Nouvelle construction site was opened in front of nearly 200 people, with local and national elected officials, project partners and representatives of the socio-economic world present at the event.
This included Grand Narbonne Agglomeration Community vice president Jean-Michel Alvarez Didier Codorniou, 1st Vice-President of the Occitanie Region, Eolmed chairman and Qair founder Jean Marc Bouchet, Archimed president Philippe Matière and Prefect of the Aude Thierry Bonnier.
The floating wind farm will be located off the coast of Gruissan and Port-La Nouvelle.
EolMed managing director Laurent Vergnet said: “Eolmed is a major step forward for the renewable energy sector in France, and particularly for the Occitanie region.
“It is a milestone in the creation of an offshore industry in France and is positioned as a reference project for commercial tenders in the Mediterranean.”
EolMed president Jean Marc Bouchet said: “This project, which combines local development, energy sovereignty and national reindustrialisation, was imagined fifteen years ago and we are now going to assemble the biggest floating wind turbines built in France, in Occitania.”