The Saint Nazaire Port Facility is Chosen for the Installation of the Îles d’Yeu and Noirmoutier Offshore Wind Farm
It’s now official: Nantes ‒ Saint Nazaire Port has been chosen as the port of installation of the Îles d'Yeu and Noirmoutier offshore wind farm. An agreement regarding the reservation of port real estate has been signed by Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy (SGRE), Nantes ‒ Saint Nazaire Port and the Company Eoliennes en Mer des Îles d’Yeu et de Noirmoutier (EMYN) for a period of use of 21 months. This award is a powerful sign of the recognition of the know-how possessed by all the port professionals who were already involved in the deployment of France’s first offshore wind farm facility, which came into service in November 2022.
14.5 hectares of real estate will be made available to Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy between March 2024 and December 2025. In addition to the MRE logistics hub, the Joubert sluice dock, the Quai de la Prise d'Eau and Quai des Charbonniers port facilities, and the LHM 600 and LHM 550 cranes will also be utilized during the period of wind farm installation operations.
The nacelles manufactured at the Siemens Gamesa factory in Le Havre will be transported by sea to the Quai des Charbonniers quay, aboard a ro-ro vessel. They will then be transferred using SPMT trailers to the logistics hub. The blades, which will also be produced in Le Havre, and the masts arriving from Brest, where they will have been pre-equipped, will be unloaded at the Quai de la Prise d'Eau quay. Already used for the installation of the Saint Nazaire offshore wind farm, the installation vessel Vole au Vent operated by the Jan de Nul Company will be returning to the Joubert sluice dock to collect the wind turbines.
The components of the 62 wind turbines will transit the Saint Nazaire dock basins between the spring of 2024 and the autumn of 2025. The wind turbines each generating 8 MW, or an overall capacity of almost 500 MW in total, will supply enough electricity every year for nearly 800 000 people, or the equivalent of the population of the Department of Vendée.
The Îles d’Yeu and Noirmoutier offshore wind farm represents an investment of around 2.5 billion euros. The two-and-a-half-year-long wind farm construction project will involve 1 600 direct jobs in France, including some one hundred salaried employees in the port-related specialisms.
Below: Marc Hirt, Michel Puyrazat, Christelle Morançais, David Samzun, Paolo Cairo and Frédéric Petit.
