France - EDF and Alstom announce the submission of four wind power projects

EDF Energies Nouvelles has on behalf of a consortium consisting of strategic partners submitted four robust and realistic wind turbines projects in response to the French offshore wind energy call for tenders. These wind farm projects go hand in hand with a highly ambitious and balanced industrial plan to manufacture the wind turbine designed by Alstom in France that will create around 7,500 jobs.

EDF Energies Nouvelles on behalf of the Consortium with Alstom acting as its exclusive supplier is participating in the offshore wind energy call for tenders launched by the French government in July 2011, by submitting a total of four projects for the Saint-Nazaire, Saint-Brieuc, Courseulles-sur-Mer and Fécamp sites.

Implementation of these wind power projects is based on a highly ambitious and unique industrial plan that will bring in investment and create around 7,500 jobs in total. With the only wind turbine manufactured completely in France, Alstom's ground-breaking technology would help to create a sustainable industry that will ultimately generate exports of French technology.

This balanced industrial plan will deliver economic benefits for numerous ports on the French coast. Alstom, the exclusive supplier of the next-generation 6 MW turbines that will be used by the consortium, plans to set up four plants at two sites, namely Saint-Nazaire and Cherbourg, to manufacture all the turbine's key components, leading to the creation of around 5,000 sustainable equipment manufacturing jobs for qualified workers, including 1,000 direct jobs. In parallel, the consortium plans to set up as many as eight units to build the foundations and assemble wind turbines at the Saint-Nazaire, Brest, Cherbourg and Le Havre port facilities, as well as four Operations & Maintenance centres in the local ports of La Turballe, Saint-Quay-Portrieux, Caen-Ouistreham and Fécamp.

This industrial programme will also help to shape and develop the activities of a network of industrial operators and local subcontractors during construction and operation of the wind farms. It will be supported by local engineering and R&D units, working in harmony with regional university-based partners.

The four wind farm projects submitted by the consortium are based on wind power and environmental studies conducted over a period of around four years, as well as in-depth geotechnical surveys carried out at each location to determine the characteristics of the sea bed. All this data is crucial for selecting the best technical solutions at each location and designing robust projects that are well-suited and realistic by the key project submission stage. Through its rigorous and forward-looking approach, the Consortium has gained a project development lead.

In addition, the consultation it launched some considerable time ago with local stakeholders-fishermen, municipalities, elected officials, neighbours- has already enabled it to achieve a broad consensus in favour of the projects at the four sites.

EDF Energies Nouvelles leads the consortium of strategic partners including DONG Energy, Nass&Wind Offshore, wpd Offshore and Alstom.

With operations in Europe and North America, EDF Energies Nouvelles is a market leader in green electricity production. With a development focused on wind energy for several years and more recently on solar photovoltaic, the Group is also present in other segments of the renewable energies market: small hydro, marine energy, biomass, biofuel and biogas. In addition, the Group is expanding in the distributed renewable energies sector. EDF Energies Nouvelles is a subsidiary of the EDF Group.

Alstom is a global leader in the world of power generation, power transmission, and rail infrastructure and sets the benchmark for innovative and environmentally friendly technologies. Alstom builds the fastest train and the highest capacity automated metro in the world, provides turnkey integrated power plant solutions and associated services for a wide variety of energy sources, including hydro, nuclear, gas, coal and wind power, and it offers a wide range of solutions for power transmission, with a focus on smart grids. The Group employs 92,000 people in over 100 countries and registered sales of €20.9 billion in 2010/11.

For more information on this article or if you would like to know more about what www.windfair.net can offer, please do not hesitate to contact Trevor Sievert at ts@windfair.net

www.windfair.net is the largest international B2B Internet platform – ultimately designed for connecting wind energy enthusiasts and companies across the globe!