This week, for the first time in France, electrons were produced from offshore wind turbines installed off the coast of Saint-Nazaire. An important step for the energy transition has now been reached.
The Saint-Nazaire offshore wind farm produced the first megawatt hours from French offshore wind power. Production will increase as wind turbines come online.
Since the installation of the first wind turbines in the Saint Nazaire park in mid-April off the coast of Guérande, 27 wind turbines have been installed at sea. Teams from the Electricity Transport Network (RTE) have carried out the electrical connection of the park to the network national electricity. By the end of 2022, the 80 wind turbines in the park owned by the consortium EDF Renewables and EIH S.à rl (a subsidiary of Enbridge Inc. and CPP Investments), should be installed at sea and produce a capacity total of 480 MW, the equivalent of the annual domestic consumption of 700,000 people.
RTE is responsible for transporting the energy produced by all French offshore wind farms ashore, which currently represents a portfolio of 17 projects spread across all metropolitan seafronts with a total capacity of more than 10 GW for an investment of around 8 billion euros. EDF Renewables and its partners are actively participating in this opportunity with four offshore wind projects under construction off the coast of Saint-Nazaire, Fécamp, Courseulles-sur-Mer and Port-Saint-Louis-du-Rhône, and one in development in off Dunkirk.
As RTE recalled in its Futurs Energétiques 2050 report: achieving carbon neutrality is impossible without significant development of renewable energies, including renewable marine energies.
[#EWindAtSea] Since this week, your #electricity⚡️ also tastes like #large 🌊
➡️Very happy to announce the connection to the electricity network @rte_france of the first electrons produced at sea from our park @EolienMerSNA 🇫🇷
A major step for the #EnergyTransition pic.twitter.com/O9u5Vim5Ew
— EDF Renewables (@EDF_RE) June 10, 2022
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