A consortium led by Atos has been selected by Ailes Marines to implement mission critical communications solutions and ensure marine coordination activities for its 496MW Saint-Brieuc wind farm project.
With construction work on the Iberdrola-backed project off the French coast set to begin in the first semester of 2021, Atos will implement a full operational marine coordination center located in Pleudaniel, Brittany.
This will coordinate, monitor and document all traffic in and around the construction area, operating 24/7 during the construction stage.
While building and managing a wind farm of 103 km2 is a very complex process where many operators and organizations are circulating in the offshore site, Atos said its solution enables Ailes Marines to ensure that all of its on-site operations run smoothly and that only authorised people and equipment circulate in the area.
This centre will also enable Ailes Marines’ teams to register and track vessels and their crew in real time for ultimate on-site security.
This will ensure safety of the offshore operations in the farm (including a ‘Permit to work’ system) or to plan and monitor offshore activities according to the weather forecast.
For this coordination centre, Atos will work in partnership with SeaRenerg, which will provide highly qualified marine management personnel.
Atos will also set up a unified critical voice communication platform that will allow helicopters, ships, and operational teams working on the offshore farm to communicate seamlessly between them or with the coordination centre, in and around the wind farm.
In a unpredictable environment, 16.3 km away from the shore, where the usual telecom networks do not work, the Atos solution is designed in such a way that communication between operators is guaranteed in all conditions, using satellite telephones as back up, and can be used to manage incidents and emergencies.
Both systems will remain operational after the construction stage and will support Ailes Marines throughout the exploitation phase, when the 62 turbines will be operational.
Ailes Marines president and international offshore director for Iberdrola Javier Garcia Perez said: “Extreme environments call for extremely reliable communication solutions and we were looking for a French specialist to help coordinate and secure our first offshore wind farm in France.
“The experience of the Atos teams, their knowledge of offshore and the very specific digital and OT technologies associated with this area are very valuable to us.”
Atos head of critical communication solutions Bernard Payer said: “We are proud to support Iberdrola in its first offshore wind farm project in France, by securing its wind turbines to ensure the safe production of green electricity.
“Atos aims to pioneer in decarbonization for the benefit of all its stakeholders and we are keen to support clients in their sustainable projects.
“Offshore wind farms are large and critical infrastructures in remote and dangerous areas.
“Building on our successful partnership with Ørsted, and now on our relationship with Iberdrola, Atos is more than ever a leader in critical communications for offshore wind energy.”
Meanwhile, Ailes Marines has announced its intention to bury all the inter-wind cables at the 496MW Saint-Brieuc wind farm off the French coast.
Following tooling tests carried out in the summer of 2020, the decision has been taken despite the very complex conditions of the site’s seabed, Ailes said.
Complete burial of the cables represents a major advance for navigation safety and a further step towards maintaining fishing activities within the park, it added.
During the month of September 2020, slicing tests at sea on the site of the Saint-Brieuc bay wind farm were carried out by Prysmian, which is supplying and installing the wind farm cables.
The objective of the tests was to confirm the technical feasibility of 100% cable burial in the different types of soil encountered, and to validate the slicing tool that will be used for the work.
At the end of this test campaign, that the weather-ocean conditions for the operation of the trencher were as expected, enabling Ailes Marines to go-ahead with 100% cable burial.