The French government has selected five ports to receive nearly EUR 260 million in funding under the France 2030 investment programme to upgrade infrastructure supporting the country’s floating offshore wind industry.
The selected ports are Cherbourg, Brest, Nantes-Saint Nazaire, Port-la-Nouvelle, and Marseille-Fos, with the port funding expected to leverage almost EUR 1 billion in total investment.
According to the government, the funding, administered by ADEME, will help adapt port infrastructure for the manufacture, assembly and deployment of floating wind projects, supporting France’s target of deploying 6 GW of floating wind by 2040.
The selected projects are intended to create a network of complementary industrial hubs on the Atlantic, Channel and Mediterranean coasts, strengthening the domestic supply chain for the sector, the government said on 30 July.
In a press release following the award, Ports de Normandie said its project to upgrade the Port of Cherbourg represents an investment of EUR 30 million, with EUR 10.5 million to be provided by the ADEME funding, EUR 18.1 million to be secured through revenue generated from offshore renewable energy activities, and EUR 1.4 million to be provided by the Cotentin Urban Community.
The government funding comes as France ramps up deployment of floating wind, with the recently launched AO10 tender set to award a little over 10 GW in capacity across seven floating and four fixed-bottom offshore wind farms.
France was also cleared by the European Commission earlier this month to implement a EUR 63 billion scheme to support offshore wind energy through Contracts for Difference (CfDs). The scheme, which will run for 25 years, will support the construction and operation of eleven offshore wind farms in the North Sea, the Atlantic and the Mediterranean that are expected to have a combined capacity of up to 11.1 GW and to generate up to 47.8 TWh of renewable electricity per year, or around 10.6 per cent of France’s annual electricity consumption, according to the EU Commission.
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