Construction of French offshore electrical substations

French yard Chantiers de l'Atlantique said it has won an order to build the electrical substations for the offshore wind farms at Fécamp and Courseulles-sur-Mer off France. Atlantique Offshore Energy, the marine energies unit of Chantiers de l'Atlantique, with its partners GE Renewable Energy’s Grid Solutions business and SDI have been awarded a contract by Eoliennes Offshore des Hautes Falaises et Eoliennes Offshore du Calvados, a joint venture of EDF Renouvelables, Enbridge Inc and WPD offshore, to design, manufacture and install the electrical substations for the Fécamp and Courseulles-sur-Mer wind farms off the Normandy coast.

Chantiers de l’Atlantique will be responsible for the topside and jacket-type foundation design, manufacturing and commissioning. The delivery of the substations, with a total capacity of around 500 MW each, should take place at the end of 2022 and in 2023.

With the first steel sheet cut, Chantiers de l'Atlantique and its partners, GE Grid Solutions and SDI, in January also started construction of the Saint Nazaire offshore wind farm electrical substation to be based off the west coast of France. Ordered in August 2019 by Parc du Banc de Guérande, a joint venture of EDF Renouvelables and Enbridge Inc, the Saint Nazaire substation will leave the shipyard in the summer of 2021, to be connected with the wind farm in 2022. The substation will collect and transform the electricity produced by wind turbines and transfer it to the shore network, while ensuring remote control of the wind farm.

Over the period of execution of these projects, more than 400 personnel from Chantiers de l’Atlantique and its sub-contractors will be employed in the Saint Nazaire area.