EU or Chinese turbines at French floating wind flagship? 'It's not a simple choice'

France’s offshore wind strategy provides the kind of scale and certainty that will significantly derisk floating wind projects and facilitate the scaling up of the industry there, according to one of the companies behind the pioneering Pennavel project in Brittany.

Hailed as the world’s first commercial-scale floating offshore wind project to secure a tariff through a competitive tender, Pennavel's CfD strike price of €86.45/MWh ($94.05/MWh) also raised eyebrows, with industry figures questioning how realistic it is.

But Felipe Cornago, managing director of Baywa r.e.’s offshore wind division, argues that the competitive pricing that the Pennavel partners bid with their project merely reflects the advantages of a one-stop French system that determines seabed rights, long-term tariffs and a secure grid connection a in one go.

“The system provides you with a lot of certainty, including a connection guaranteed at a certain date and a long-term tariff that is indexed against inflation and interest rate hikes,” he says.

"Taking out risk you can fine tune your assumptions and make everything a bit more competitive."

Cornago reckons the French strategy allows a clearer line of vision to the commercial operation date than other projects, and reduces risks along the supply chain too.

“Generally, and as long as you don’t face any appeals, it is much easier to see the tariff at COD than, say, in the UK, where developers are still fine-tuning after the seabed auction.

“When you engage with the supply chain, they know that you're quite serious about going forward, so there is a kind of positive feedback circle.”

Cornago argues that the benefit is particularly important for floating wind, which as a “less established market” than bottom-fixed inevitably brings more uncertainty.

“A model that takes out risk can make all the difference, building credibility and allowing developers to get on with the task of engineering," he says.

Cornago describes RTE, the French transmission system operator as up to the job and "well-resourced with well-trained staff".

“Grid uncertainties in France are much lower than they were 10 years ago,” he says.

European industry in with a shout

Despite the ground that has been gained by this de-risking, the Pennavel consortium is not rushing into the procurement process and still has some important conceptual decisions to make, such as a choice between steel and concrete foundations.

“But we have advanced quite a lot. We have checked options including different ports and different contractors.”

Cornago says there is a strong case for building floating foundations in Europe: “It’s not 100% confirmed, we want to do it in Europe. If you look at transport costs, it makes sense to do it locally,” he explains.

“This is one of the reasons that we have been considering concrete. It opens up the possibilities for local production a bit. We are looking at different designs.”

Turbine choice not confirmed

According to Cornago, the Pennavel project will deploy up to 13 wind turbines with a unit capacity of around 20MW, somewhat lower than the company had previously signalled.

The Chinese OEMs' dash to build bigger offshore wind turbines, their lower prices and the highly competitive strike price placed for Pennavel have helped feed speculation that the machines will be supplied by China’s Mingyang Smart Energy.

Cornago says nothing of the sort has been decided.

“It's not as simple as that. You have a range, and you still have to engage with the OEMs and see what is going to be available at the right time. Then you have to fine-tune and present the solution," he says.

“We have not confirmed anything yet. We are not starting from scratch, but we still need to do a bit of time to get the engineering aligned for the wind turbine installation,” he says.

“Another of the drivers is going to be the question of which wind turbines are commercially available in the market as well. So is we have to wait a little bit, and look at the possibilities,” he says, suggesting such decisions could be made in 2025 or 2026.

Describing the wind turbine configuration as "one of the most important and more complex decisions in the project" Cornago nevertheless stresses that the partners want to move relatively quickly, but "with care".

“You have to be really disciplined to get things right. You can listen to what the OEM has to say but the reality comes into a robust proposal when you stage a competitive procurement tender… the only educated answer will come out of that,” he cautions.

For the time being, the consortium is getting on with engaging stakeholder and recently signed a surveying contract with Setec Energie Environnement, an environmental consultancy firm with specialised knowledge of the region.

The scope of the contract will include in-depth environmental impact study, which will constitute the central element of the authorisation application file that must be submitted in the autumn of 2025.

Asked for his general opinion about the OEM market, Conargo says he believes there is room for more than two suppliers to the offshore wind sector, referring to the current domination of Vestas and Siemens Gamesa in Western markets.

“I think that is the way that the worldwide industry will go. At the end of the day, also, you see the demands, the ambition of the governments to deploy. These two companies cannot produce everything. So common sense makes you think that somehow more will come," he notes.

"Does it have to come from China? I don't know. Maybe there is a room for another competitor coming in Europe as well. It's a very complex situation. European suppliers have to be competitive too... but I really think there there are more things than price to put into the equation. There is also quality. The European suppliers have an incredible record. It's very difficult to beat them," he says.

Major league floating player

The tenders will cover two fixed-bottom and three floating offshore wind farms on locations off the coast of Fecamp in northwestern France, as well as the waters near Brittany, the Gulf of Biscay and the southern Mediterranean coast.

French authorities also made it clear that they intend to have 18GW of offshore wind capacity operational by 2035.

Energy Minister Olga Givernet said the country is targeting 45GW of capacity by 2050, when offshore wind is expected to account for 20% of the country’s total energy production.

Bayw r.e. has given a warm reception to the launch of what Angélique Logodin, the company's head of offshore wind in France, describes as "a first multi-GW tender of unprecedented size".

"We are delighted with this announcement and the work done to enable our sector to accelerate the development of offshore wind farms in France," she says, describing the tenth offtake allocation (A10) as "representing a real massification and development strategy for offshore wind, particularly floating".

Cornargo says he is also encouraged by what he describes as the massive investment planned in regional and national ports in France.

He cites an agreement involving the shareholders of the Port of Brest and the Western Brittany Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and Industry to invest €900m over forty years in projects primarily centred on the energy transition, and with an emphasis on positioning the port as a key player in floating wind power.