The operations and maintenance (O&M) base of the French Calvados offshore wind farm was inaugurated on 11 April in Ouistreham. According to Éolien Maritime France (EMF), the consortium behind the offshore wind project, this marks a major milestone between now and the commissioning of the wind farm, which is scheduled for 2025.
The O&M base is a result of a partnership between the teams of the Calvados offshore wind farm and the Ports of Normandy, and is part of a major investment in the port, as part of which Ports of Normandy extended the port of Caen-Ouistreham by 3 hectares to enable setting up the Calvados operation and maintenance base there.
Construction of the O&M base started in 2021, with the Caen-based company Abscis Bertin Construction in charge of the work.
By 2025, 100 permanent jobs will be created at the operation and maintenance base. The consortium already started local recruitment in early 2023 and will fill in all the positions at the base in 2025.
During the construction phase, and into the operations phase, the team will coordinate the marine activities at the wind farm in real time and authorise interventions and access to the project site. During the operational phase, the O&M base staff will carry out various operations such as preventive and curative maintenance, monitoring and optimisation of the offshore wind farm’s production, meteorological monitoring, intervention planning, and monitoring of access to the offshore wind farm.
The consortium behind the 450 MW offshore wind farm, also known as the Courseulles-sur-Mer offshore wind farm, comprises EDF Renewables, EIH S.à.r.l. (a subsidiary of Enbridge Inc. and CPP Investments) and Skyborn Renewables.
The developers reached the financial close and started construction on the EUR 2 billion project in February 2021.
The offshore wind farm will comprise 64 Siemens Gamesa 7 MW wind turbines, ten of which will feature the company’s RecyclableBlades .
Once fully commissioned in the third quarter of 2025, the 450 MW Calvados project will generate the equivalent of the annual electricity consumption of 630,000 people or over 90 per cent of the Calvados French department’s population.
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