The Saint-Brieuc offshore wind farm is the first large-scale offshore wind farm in Brittany and one of the first in France to obtain all the necessary government permits for its construction and operation.
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Despite the problems associated with building it in the middle of the COVID, the Saint Brieuc project will be completed on schedule, with installation work being completed this year.
Fifty-one of the 62 jackets and 35 of the 62 turbines have already been installed. In addition, after the test phase, the first wind turbines began supplying clean electricity on July 5.
With an investment of 2.4 billion euros, Saint Brieuc has a total capacity of 496 megawatts (MW) distributed among 62 turbines of 8 MW each.
When fully operational, Saint-Brieuc will produce 1,820 gigawatt hours (GWh) per year, which will cover the energy needs of 835,000 people (including heating), equivalent to a population larger than the city of Valencia or almost as large as that of Marseille.
The Baltic Eagle offshore wind farm, located in the Baltic Sea, has a capacity of 476 MW. Baltic Eagle will have 50 wind turbines of 9.53 MW of unit power on monopiles, for an annual production of 1.9 TWh, enough to sustainably meet the demand of 475,000 households and avoid the emission of 800,000 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere each year.
The manufacturing of the components of this wind farm is almost complete, and some have even been completed ahead of schedule thanks to the work of a multidisciplinary team.
This wind farm, which is scheduled to come into operation at the end of 2024, has a minimum regulated tariff of 64.6 €/MWh for the first 20 years. In addition, it has already sold 100% of its production under long-term contracts.
In addition to Saint Brieuc, the Vineyard Wind offshore wind project in the United States is scheduled to come online in the last quarter of 2023.
The Baltic Eagle wind farm in Germany will be operational in 2024, and East Anglia 3 in the United Kingdom and Windanker in Germany will start production in 2026.
These projects will add to the current portfolio of 1,258 MW of operational offshore wind projects, including West of Duddon Sands in the Irish Sea, Wikinger in the German Baltic Sea and East Anglia One in the southern North Sea. ■