Allseas' Pioneering Spirit Wins More Wind Work in France - gCaptain
Allseas' Pioneering Spirit Wins More Wind Work in France
Offshore contractor Allseas has been awarded a contract to install the offshore substation for the Yeu and Noirmoutier islands’ offshore wind farm development off the coast of Pays-de-la-Loire in France.
The substation jacket and topside will be installed by Allseas’ groundbreaking installation vessel Pioneering Spirit in the first half of 2024. This will mark Allseas’ second major offshore wind project in France. Allseas says the “lift and set down” operation will be very similar to the Saint-Nazaire installation job Pioneering Spirit performed for DEME in the Bay of Biscay in August 2021.
The offshore wind farm is being developed by Éoliennes en Mer des Îles d’Yeu et de Noirmoutier (EMYN), a consortium that includes Ocean Winds (an ENGIE and EDPR joint venture), Sumitomo Corporation, La Banque des Territoires and Vendée Energie.
DEME, the project’s main offshore contractor, has hired Allseas to execute the jacket and topside installation works. DEME will perform the installation of the pin piles for the substation foundations and transport the jacket and topside to the installation site.
The Pioneering Spirit will be used to install the substation using its 5000-tonne crane that will lift and set down the jacket and topside structures.
Designed for single-lift installation and removal of large oil and gas platforms, Pioneering Spirit is increasingly being used in the development of offshore wind energy projects for the installation of large transformer stations.
“Weather and tidal conditions at the installation location can be challenging, which we’re able to mitigate thanks to the unprecedented size and stability of our installation vessel,” says Allseas’ Matthijs Groenewegen, Vice President Projects. “We look forward to working closely with DEME to realise this important offshore wind development that will deliver clean energy to thousands of French households.”
The Yeu-Noirmoutier wind farm development is situated 16 km off the Atlantic Coast in waters are up to 36 m deep. Once completed, the offshore wind farm will have a total capacity of 496 MW, producing enough power to meet the annual electricity demands of 800,000 people.
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Related Knowledge Center: Offshore wind energy
Over the next decade, U.S. offshore wind power is expected to grow from a single 30-megawatt wind farm off Rhode Island to more than 2,000 MW of capacity along the Atlantic Seaboard. There are contracts for wind power off the coasts of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Maryland, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Virginia.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has estimated the United States has over 4,000 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind potential, enough to power the country four times over.
The growth in part being spurred by state solicitations, including in New York, where then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) set a commitment of 9,000 MW of offshore wind by 2035, and in Connecticut, where in June 2021, Gov. Ned Lamont (D) signed legislation authorizing the construction of 2,000 MW of offshore wind by 2030.
The offshore development is also being driven by an investment tax credit set to end in December 2019 and is equal to 12 percent of expenditures. U.S. Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Tom Carper (D-Del.) have introduced a bill to extend the tax credit for up to eight years.
The Interior Department has held eight competitive lease sales that resulted in 15 offshore wind leases over 1.7 million acres that has the potential for 21 GW of capacity. In February 2022, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management completed a bidding process that realized $4.37 billion for 488,000 acres across six lease areas in federal waters off New York and New Jersey.
Projects have also been proposed off the Southeast coast, off California and Hawaii, and for the Great Lakes.