JERA, ADEME Investissement and Ideol have agreed key terms on establishing an investment vehicle for 2GW of floating offshore wind.
The companies will finance the development phase of at least 2GW of projects using Ideol’s Damping Pool technology, based on a floating barge concept. They say they will target upcoming commercial-scale tenders in Scotland and France as well as growing initiatives in Japan, the US and elsewhere.
The three companies, Japan’s largest utility company JERA, Ademe Investissement, which is 100% owned by the French state and focuses on financing innovative infrastructure projects, and French floating wind company Ideol are aiming at financing several floating projects over the next five years.
JERA said a number of initiatives were showing acceleration of floating wind as well as its “legitimate place” in the global energy mix and pointed to Ideol’s “proven and bankable” track-record, competitive technology and high local content.
JERA’s business development executive Satoshi Yajima said the company was “enchanted” to support the “most promising floating foundation on the market and to be a part of its future inevitable success”.
“We are positively assured by Ideol’s high local content technology and we envision commercial scale projects around the globe through this partnership.”
ADEME chief executive Arnaud Leroy said: “This partnership aims at financing first commercial scale projects and at supporting Ideol’s technology as both will contribute to accelerate the competitiveness of floating offshore wind.”
Ideol chief executive Paul de la Guérivière said the milestone confirmed the market-readiness of its technology and “shows the relevance of our unique business model as project co-developer and co-EPCI contractor based on our technical excellence”.
He added: “We are particularly happy and honoured to team up with JERA and ADEME Investissement, leading voices in two of the most strategic and pioneering markets for floating offshore wind that are Japan and France.”