The French government has pre-qualified twelve candidates for the AO9 tender, which offers four new sites for offshore wind development, one off South Brittany, two in the Mediterranean and one in the French South Atlantic region.
France opened the tendering procedure in July 2024 and has now completed the first of its three phases. Competitive dialogue is coming up next and project proposals will be submitted and selected in the third and final phase.
The twelve developers who are eligible to run for building the four offshore wind farms are: BayWa r.e. ; a consortium of Elicio Group, Q Energy and Kansai Electric ; EnBW Valeco Offshore ; a consortium of EDF Renewables and Maple Power ; Iberdrola ; a consortium of Ocean Winds and Banque des Territoires ; a consortium of Oxan Energy and Ingka Investments ; Plenitude and Qair ; Parkwind ; RWE ; Skyborn Renewables and Octopus Energy ; and TotalEnergies .
Through the AO9 offshore wind tender (l’Appel d’Offres 9), France is procuring a floating wind farm with an installed capacity of between 400 MW and 550 MW in South Brittany, two floating wind farms each with an installed capacity of between 450 MW and 550 MW in the Mediterranean, and an offshore wind farm with an installed capacity of between 1,000 MW and 1,250 MW in the South Atlantic.
The project in South Brittany is located adjacent to the site awarded through the French AO5 tender, secured by Elicio and BayWa r.e. earlier this year.
For the offshore wind farm in the South Atlantic, it will be decided in the next phase of the tender whether the project will use fixed-bottom or floating wind technology.
In the next phase of the tender process, the competitive dialogue, the French authorities will outline the detailed criteria of the tender rules and more precisely define the maritime zones where the projects will be located.
Following the announcement of the pre-qualified developers, Ingka Investments, part of Ingka Group (the largest IKEA retailer), said that it has invested in over 10 GW of offshore wind capacity across six countries, now adding France as a seventh market. Its France-based partner Oxan Energy has already participated in tenders and projects for floating offshore wind in France and worldwide and will provide its skills and competencies in this industry, Ingka said.