EDF Renewables and Maple Power have won a tender to develop a 1GW offshore wind project off the coast of Normandy.
The competitive tender for the Centre Manche 1 site scored candidates’ bids on various factors, including blade recycling, contribution to a biodiversity protection fund, rate of use of SMEs for construction and operation and use of participatory investment.
The commissioning of the project is expected in 2031.
EDF Renewables and Maple Power’s site off Normandy brings cumulative capacity of French offshore wind projects under development to 4GW.
Luc Rémont, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of EDF Group, said: “We welcome the decision of the Ministry of Energy Transition, which confirms the quality of the work carried out by EDF Renewables and Maple Power.
“We are pleased to continue our trusted collaboration with the Normandy region in favour of the energy transition.
“The Channel Normandy offshore wind farm is fully in line with the EDF group’s strategy. It will contribute to achieving Europe and France’s objectives of carbon neutrality by 2050.”
Michael van der Heijden, Managing Director of Maple Power, said: “We are very pleased to have been selected to carry out the project offshore Normandy with our partner EDF Renewables, reinforcing our historic collaboration and demonstrating the expertise of our project team.
“The award of this major project is another milestone that confirms Maple Power’s ambition to deliver large-scale offshore wind projects in Europe, contributing to the energy transition. We look forward to starting the development of the project.”
In addition to the tender announcement, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, Minister for Energy Transition, also presented a set of measures the government claims will accelerate the development of offshore wind power off France.
These include the publication of the specification of a 250MW floating offshore wind project in southern Brittany (AO5) on the website of the Commission de régulation de l’énergie (CRE) in April.
This site will be one of the first floating wind developments in the world to be awarded through commercial tendering.
Candidates will be able to prepare their tenders, which will then be selected on the basis of a panel of economic, social and environmental criteria.
The allocation of this project is scheduled for the end of 2023.
The other measure is the selection of candidates who will participate in the competitive dialogue for the two offshore wind farms located off the Ile d’Oléron (AO7) and Normandy (AO8).
The allocation of these two projects will take place at the beginning of 2024, for commissioning scheduled for 2032.
AO7 (1GW) candidates are: Ocean Winds, RWE, Iberdrola, Oceole, Eni Plenitude, Corio-Qair JV, EDF Renwables-Maple Power JV, Skyborn-Cobra JV and TotalEnergies and Jera JV.
AO8 (500MW) candidates are: Ocean Winds, Eni Plenitude, Iberdrola, a Vattenfall, Skyborn and Banque de Territoires alliance, EDF Renewables-Maple Power JV, TotalEnergies-RWE JV and Corio-Qair JV.
Pannier-Runacher also announced the launch of a national consultation on the acceleration of competitive tendering procedures and changes of public support models for offshore wind farms.