France Opens Public Consultation on Floating Wind Offshore Brittany

France’s National Commission for Public Debate (CNDP) has launched a public consultation on future floating wind projects offshore southern Brittany.

The country’s Multiannual Energy Programme (Programmation pluriannuelle de l’énergie (PPE)) calls for 8.75 GW of offshore wind capacity to be put out to tender between 2020 and 2028, and for the development of up to 6.2 GW of operating capacity throughout the same period.

Two of those tenders will be for a 250 MW floating wind project off Brittany in 2021, and for a wind farm with the capacity of up to 500 MW from 2024 onward. The projects are planned to have a shared connection to the grid.

The public consultation will run from 20 July to 30 November and is expected to help the Ministry of Ecological Transition decide on the potential site of the projects. The wind farms are expected to be built in an area covering around 600 km2.

The consultations carried out in Brittany over the last several years have already identified areas suitable for the establishment of new offshore wind farms.

Additional topics of the consultation will include the methods for the projects’ integration into the grid, the maintenance of the wind farms, as well as issues related to the environmental impact of the projects.