Wind farm developers EDF Energies Nouvelles and wpd offshore have signed a partnership agreement formalising both groups' decision to combine their areas of expertise to meet the French government's second call for offshore wind tenders.
Wind farm developers EDF Energies Nouvelles and wpd offshore have signed a partnership agreement formalising both groups’ decision to combine their areas of expertise to meet the French government’s second call for offshore wind tenders.
The two companies have already co-operated in the government’s wind power development initiative with success in the first tender launched in 2011, working with Alstom, which has been designated the exclusive partner for the supply of wind turbines to these tenders. The two companies will pool their resources through a joint company in which EDF Energies Nouvelles will hold a controlling interest. The partners aim to develop a technically and financially competitive bid for the second offshore wind energy call for tenders and will rely on the agreements signed with Alstom to propose a 6 MW French-made wind turbine especially designed for offshore wind farms, its Haliade 150 – 6MW unit.
EDF EN and wpd offshore will continue the alliance forged with Alstom at that time for the supply of turbines manufactured at Alstom’s four future plants in Saint-Nazaire and Cherbourg. If their tender is successful the partners will be able to expand the breadth and depth of the industrial project initiated at the time of the first tender, bringing closer to achievement the critical size required to sustain this industrial sector over the long term. EDF Energies Nouvelles currently has more than 277 MW of offshore wind power under construction and approximately 2500 MW under development.
EDF EN has developed two major projects – C-Power, a 325 MW offshore wind farm in Belgium with 215 MW already commissioned and the 62 MW Teesside project in the United Kingdom due to be completed in the summer of 2013. In France, the company is leading three projects: Fécamp, Courseulles-sur-Mer and Saint-Nazaire, which represent nearly 1400 MW and several years of technical studies and consultation. In the United Kingdom, the Group is a co-shareholder in the Navitus Bay project, one of the largest projects in the world with a capacity of 1100 MW.
wpd offshore has a portfolio of 18 projects in 6 countries, 8 of which have obtained all the construction permits for a total capacity of 2500 MW. The group’s first achievements are located in Germany, notably with Baltic I, the first offshore wind farm in the Baltic Sea with a capacity of 48 MW. More recently, it launched the construction of the Butendiek project in Germany, encompassing 80 offshore wind turbines in the North Sea for a capacity of 288 MW. In France, wpd offshore has developed since 2007 numerous seaboard projects along the English Channel and the Atlantic, particularly in the area off the coast of the islands of Yeu and Noirmoutier proposed in the second call for tenders, as well as the sites of Fécamp and Courseulles-sur-Mer, awarded in the first invitation to tender, in which wpd is a shareholder.