The Le Treport offshore wind farm is a 496MW wind farm being developed off the coast of Dieppe and Le Treport, France.

Eoliennes en Mer Dieppe-Le Treport (EMDT), a special purpose company, was awarded the tender to develop and operate the project in June 2014. EMDT is a joint venture of Engie (31%), EDP Renewables (29.5%), Sumitomo Corporation (29.5%), and the French public sector financial institution Caisse des Depôts et Consignations (10%).

EMDT received environmental approval for the project from the French Agency for Biodiversity (AFB) as well as other government authorisations to start the construction of the wind farm in February 2019.

Construction on the €2bn ($2.26bn) project is scheduled to commence in 2019, while commissioning is planned for 2021.

Le Treport offshore wind farm location and site details

The Dieppe-Le Treport offshore wind farm site is located in the English Channel, approximately 17km off the coast of Dieppe and 15.5km offshore Treport, in  water depths ranging between 5m and 25m.

EMDT conducted geotechnical investigation of the site in the second half of 2018 and received site clearance from the Prefecture of Seine-Maritime in February 2019.

Le Treport offshore wind farm make-up

Covering an area of 110km², the Dieppe-Le Treport offshore wind farm will consist of 62 SG 8.0-167 DD offshore wind turbines to be supplied by Siemens Gamesa. The turbines will be manufactured at Le Harve.

With 167m-diameter rotor and 81.5m-long blades, each pitch-regulated direct-drive turbine will have a swept area of 21,900m².

The turbines are designed to operate at 690V and 50Hz frequency and wind turbine will be capable of producing 8MW of electricity each.

The distance between each wind turbine will  range between 1,100m and 1,300m.

Production

The Dieppe-Le Treport offshore wind farm is expected to produce 2,000GWh of electricity a year, starting from 2021.

The power generated by the wind farm will be enough to meet the electricity needs of approximately 850,000 people.

The estimated operational life of the wind farm is 20 years.

Power transmission from Le Treport wind project

The electricity generated by the turbines will be gathered and transferred to an offshore substation through an inter-array cable network.

The power received at the offshore substation will be transmitted onshore through two submarine cables, to be further connected to the grid.

French electricity transmission system operator Reseau de Transport d’Electricite (RTE) will be responsible for power evacuation from the offshore wind farm.

Contractors involved

Offshore Design Engineering (ODE), a DORIS Group company, along with DORIS Engineering was awarded the owner’s engineer contracts for the wind turbine generator installation and the marine construction management for the Dieppe-Le Treport offshore wind farm in August 2017.

Siemens Gamesa, through its wholly-owned subsidiary Adwens France, was awarded the turbine supply contract for the offshore wind farm in September 2017.

IMDC, an international engineering and consultancy company, in partnership with Tractebel has been engaged for the inter-array cables and the offshore substation for the Dieppe-Le Treport wind farm.

Fugro carried out geotechnical survey on the Dieppe- Le Treport offshore wind farm site from July to October 2018.