French-based company DCNS plans to establish a marine energy subsidiary that would be dedicated to floating offshore wind, tidal and ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) technology.
“DCNS plans to create a subsidiary dedicated to marine energies and is currently focused on concluding investment from new external investors. After closing this process, DCNS will maintain a majority stake in this entity,” a spokesperson from the company told our sister news site Tidal Energy Today .
With the new business unit, DCNS aims to create a strong foothold in the marine energy sector and bring each of the aforementioned technologies to full maturity.
In July, the French Environment and Energy Management Agency (ADEME) approved two floating wind pilot projects, one of them being a 24MW project in the Groix area in Brittany to be developed by a joint venture including Eolfi, CGN, DCNS and Vinci.
In the past few years, DCNS has taken part in the US Aqua Ventus project in Maine and partnered with GE on developing a floating offshore wind system featuring the 6MW Haliade wind turbine on a DCNS floating platform.
“With the projects in Ile-de-Groix and Maine, DCNS is involved in the installation of two floating offshore farms comprising six turbines and 36 MW of power generation capacity. By 2020, when the first farms will be installed, other international projects will be in the works, and DCNS aims at playing a major role in them,” the company states on its website.
In 2013, DCNS and Nass&Wind completed the Winflo demonstrator design phase and were planning to deploy a small-scale demonstrator with a 1MW turbine, while the final device planned by manufacturers would have had a capacity of about 5MW. However, the developers decided to reconsider the project the following year.
Offshore WIND Staff