Alain Le Vern, President of the Upper Normandy region went to Bremerhaven in northern Germany to visit AREVA Wind that designs, assembles, commissions and maintains offshore wind turbines. Accompanied by Hélène Segura, Vice-President of the Upper Normandy responsible for vocational training, Alain Le Vern came to get a first-hand experience of the industry which should settle in the Upper Normandy.
“Today Bremerhaven is an example for the European wind industry“, says Alain Le Vern. The outer harbor of the city of Bremen has attracted more than half of the EURO 500 million invested in recent years in the area. AREVA is ready to use this success to develop two factories for the manufacture of turbines and wind turbine blades in France.
Namely, Iberdrola and AREVA won tender for the construction of the Saint-Brieuc offshore wind farm which will consist of 100 turbines.
The region’s efforts to create industrial offshore wind plants have been rewarded. The revival of the tender by the Government in September for the creation of an offshore wind farm off Tréport also enables the stakeholders to take a further step in this direction. The offshore wind industry would create thousands of permanent jobs.
With nearly 700 employees, the activities of the main production site of AREVA Wind are production of the hub and the nacelle of the wind M5000 prior to delivery to the port. AREVA Blades is responsible for the manufacture of the blades. The M5000 turbine with high efficiency (5MW) is the first wind turbine in the world designed from a technology specifically developed for large-scale offshore wind farms. At both sites, qualified technicians, specialists in each branch of the wind industry, are working closely with component suppliers.
During their stay in Germany, Alain Le Vern and Helen Segura, will also meet with the human resources manager in charge of recruitment service center of AREVA Wind in order to discuss the appropriate training and job profiles in this field.
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Offshore WIND staff, October 16, 2012; Image: areva