The arrival of the first steel blocks that will make up the three floating substructures marked the beginning of the construction of the wind turbines in the Port-La Nouvelle.

The construction work is expected to take around 18 months and will involve 250,000 hours of work, 150,000 of which will be spent on welding in the port, according to a press release from Qair.

The steel blocks were manufactured in Bagnac sur Célé, in the French Lot region, by Archimed, a company created by the merger of the French companies Matière and Ponticelli. The units will be welded together in the port like a giant construction set.

”This project, which combines local development, energy sovereignty and national reindustrialisation, was imagined fifteen years ago and we are now going to assemble the biggest floating wind turbines built in France, in Occitania”, said Jean Marc Bouchet, President of EolMed.

Fully consented in February 2021, EolMed will comprise three Vestas V164-10.0 MW wind turbines mounted on BW Ideol’s Damping Pool floating foundations and installed 15 kilometres off Gruissan, in water depths of around 60 metres.

The project reached a financial close in March of last year after the partners secured EUR 85 million in financing from the European Investment Bank (EIB).

The Mediterranean Sea pilot wind farm is set to become one of the first three floating offshore wind farms in France when it is commissioned in mid-2024.

”Eolmed is a major step forward for the renewable energy sector in France, and particularly for the Occitanie region. It is a milestone in the creation of an offshore industry in France and is positioned as a reference project for commercial tenders in the Mediterranean”, said Laurent Vergnet, Managing Director of EolMed.