REPORTAGE. The first wind farm at sea is gradually coming out of the water in Saint-Nazaire “a month in advance”

Still in the test phase, the first wind turbine in the Saint-Nazaire wind farm to operate seems unreal. Its blades, which unfold over seventy-five meters, even seem to hesitate to turn. However, this week, the huge machine produced electricity: a first in France for wind turbines at sea. And the prelude to a vast program which provides for the construction of fifty other fields at sea, along the French coast .

“Eighty foundations were installed in just one year”, recounts Céline Beaudon, project manager for EDF Renewables who has a hard time hiding her pride: “We are a month ahead of the provisional schedule”. Already 27 wind turbines have been planted on these foundations. The cables which must form an underwater spider’s web are being laid. It is this canvas that will connect each mast to an electrical substation, a kind of building on the sea that will collect all the electricity to redistribute it “via two cables” to Courance beach, before leaving for the national network.

Strangely shaped ships circulate between the white masts, the cables spinning behind them like long cords. Baptise Chanson, from Louis Dreyfus Armateurs, is in charge of this operation, which is not always easy at sea. “We take a day to connect two foundations together… So we have to be very vigilant with the weather. We have procedures in the event of sudden bad weather, to successfully lay the cable and go for shelter”.

The project has made it possible to find solutions for the next offshore parks, technical solutions, how to lay cables without fracturing the rocky bottoms, and consultation solutions to allow fishermen to continue working. It has also given rise to a new maritime sector, according to Gaël Caillaux, director of renewable energy activities at Louis Dreyfus Armateurs. “In France, there is a very strong maritime culture, associated with fishing and leisure. But the culture of industry at sea, of construction of wind farms, that did not exist”.

The first Saint-Nazaire trial facilitated the establishment of a set of standards, “everything concerning the regulatory aspect associated with working conditions, the adaptation of ship construction codes, is something that we built over time with the authorities”. The Saint-Nazaire field will operate at full capacity in December. It will produce 480 megawatts, just under half of a nuclear reactor.