EDF Renewables and Maple Power’s jointly owned project company Eoliennes en Mer Manche Normandie has been selected to develop the 1GW Centre Manche 1 offshore wind farm in the Normandy region in France.
The consortium of EDF Renewables and Maple Power was selected for the project by the French Ministry of Energy Transition following the country’s fourth offshore wind tender that was launched in January 2021.
Maple Power is a joint venture between Canadian energy infrastructure company Enbridge and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments).
Eoliennes en Mer Manche Normandie will be responsible for designing, developing, operating, and decommissioning the Centre Manche 1 offshore wind farm.
Maple Power CEO Michael van der Heijden said: “We are delighted to have been awarded the Normandy project alongside our partner EDF Renewables, which extends our very successful collaboration and is credit to the expertise of our joint team.
“Securing this landmark project is another step in Maple Power’s ambitions to deliver European offshore wind projects at scale in support of the energy transition and we look forward to the next phase of developing the project.”
To be developed more than 32km off the coast of the Manche and Calvados departments, the Centre Manche 1 project is expected to generate clean energy enough to deliver to over 1.5 million people.
The offshore wind project is expected to meet nearly half of the electricity requirements of Normandy’s population.
With planning and permitting to be finalised over the next few years, the Centre Manche 1 offshore wind farm is anticipated to be commissioned around 2030.
The planning and permitting will involve minimal development expenditure leading to construction later this decade, said Enbridge.
According to EDF Renewables, the Centre Manche 1 project is part of the French government’s plan to commission about 50 offshore wind farms by 2050 with a combined capacity of 40GW.
EDF Group president and CEO Luc Rémont said: “The Normandy offshore wind farm is fully in line with the EDF group’s strategy. It will contribute to achieving Europe and France’s objectives for carbon neutrality by 2050.”
