Posted Sep 28, 2022, 2:49 PM
The choice is made. Agnès Pannier-Runacher, Minister for Energy Transition, and Hervé Berville, Secretary of State for the Sea, have just announced the location of the future first floating wind farm. It will be located off southern Brittany, “more than 20 km from the Pointe des Poulains de Belle-Ile-en-Mer (Morbihan)”, indicates the government press release.
Several local elected officials and associations, such as Les Gardiens du Large and Horizon Groisillon, immediately expressed their disappointment. They would have liked the park to be born further west, beyond the zone of 12 miles from the coast, more than 22 km from the coast. Our choice, retort the ministers, “was made taking into account the lessons of public debate and additional consultations with local elected officials”. Associations, NGOs and the fishing sector were also contacted.
A tax of 4 million euros per year
The project provides for the installation of about twenty floating wind turbines – and not posed – which will produce 250 MW of electricity and will be able to meet the needs of 450,000 inhabitants.
A dozen consortia and international groups responded to the call for tenders, including TotalEnergies, EDF and Iberdrola. The winner will be designated by the government in the spring of 2023. He will, the press release specifies, pay the offshore wind tax. An annual amount of 4 million euros for the entire operating life of the park , it will then be distributed to the benefit of coastal municipalities up to 50%, fisheries committees for 35%, the French Office for Biodiversity for 10% and finally rescuers at sea for 5%.
If the provisional schedule is respected, this floating wind farm will be commissioned in 2030. The amount of the investment is not yet fully defined. A sum of between 600 and 700 million euros is mentioned for the construction and installation of wind turbines, and 250 million euros for connection work to the onshore network.
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