At low tide, its pylons are very close to swimmers. With its feet planted in the sand of Kerhillio beach, in Erdeven (Morbihan), the drilling platform did not go unnoticed. Over the past ten days, she has even become the star of this long sandy beach located not far from the Quiberon peninsula. It must be said that in this wild and protected environment, we are not really used to seeing such installations arrive.
Operated by the company G-Tec on behalf of Réseau Transport Electricité (RTE), the platform serves as a basis for carrying out geotechnical studies prior to connection of the future Belle-Ile-en-Mer floating wind farm. It is on this beach that the cables should be buried to bring the energy produced offshore to the continent. These studies authorized by the maritime prefecture must make it possible to specify the future route of the electrical connection. The platform should disappear before the end of September.
On Friday, three associations filed a legal appeal with the aim of stopping the construction site. According to them, the subcontractor started drilling and coring “blindly, without knowing what the bottom and the underwater soil could contain”, explain Sites and Monuments, Guardians of the Sea and the Protection and Development Federation. of the bay of Quiberon, the islands and the large dune site. The presence of submerged megaliths has been attested by recent scientific campaigns. “We cannot set up a platform like that without knowing where we are going. On this beach, archaeological remains dating from the Gallo-Roman era have been found. Excavations should be carried out first. It’s astonishing what’s happening here,” storms Anne-Marie Robic.
A project for a second park in the area
The Department of Sites and Monuments delegate is as opposed to the arrival of this barge as to the wind project she is preparing. By 2030, around twenty floating wind turbines will be erected above sea level, causing concern among the inhabitants of the island of Groix and Blle-Ile-en-Mer. The Ministry of Energy Transition also announced that a project for a second park was being studied in the same sector. For the production of photomontages, the base of 20 wind turbines 260 meters high and a rotor 235 meters in diameter was used.
At the end of 2022, a consortium led by Shell announced the abandonment of its project for four floating wind turbines off the coast of Belle-Ile-en-Mer, in particular due to the soaring cost of materials.