The three nacelles, the three hubs, the three masts and the nine blades which will constitute the future floating wind turbines of the Provence Grand Large park have arrived on the Gloria quay of the Grand Port Maritime of Port-Saint-Louis-du-Rhône. In a few weeks it will welcome the three floats built on the Eiffage Métal site in Fos-sur-Mer.

The construction of the floating platforms, behemoths 45 meters high and 80 meters wide, intended to accommodate the three wind turbines of the future Provence Grand Large park has been completed. In the coming weeks, the floats will be launched in the water using a submersible barge, then towed to the Graveleau quay before reaching the Gloria quay where the wind turbines will be assembled.

At the same time, the blades, hubs and nacelles, manufactured by Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy, were delivered at the end of March to the Gloria quay. The delivery of the masts, manufactured by GRI, took place at the beginning of April. Once the floats have been transferred to the Gloria quay, all the components will be assembled using two cranes. These operations should last approximately two weeks for each wind turbine.

Once the wind turbines have been assembled, a final series of tests will be carried out at the dock before heading to sea from August.

Each floating wind turbine will then be towed, one after the other, over a distance of approximately 25 km, to their installation area. They will then be connected to the previously installed anchor lines. Prysmian will connect the offshore electrical cables connecting Provence Grand Large to land and allowing the electricity produced by the Provence Grand Large wind turbines to be injected into RTE's public electricity transmission network. 

Provence Grand Large is the first floating offshore wind farm pilot project. The project is composed of three large capacity wind turbines, installed on an innovative system of floats with tensioned anchor lines. The installation of three floating offshore wind turbines 17 km from Napoléon beach located in Port-Saint-Louis-du-Rhône (Bouches-du-Rhône) at a depth of more than 100 meters constitutes a real technical challenge. The three wind turbines, with a power of 8.4 MW each, or 25 MW in total, will produce the equivalent of the annual consumption of 45,000 people.