We would have liked to be in front of these 200 m high steel monsters planted in the open sea. But the weather conditions, with a strong swell and waves of almost two metres, made the visit to the wind farm located in the Bay of Saint-Brieuc (Côtes-d’Armor) impossible. “On offshore construction sites, there are a lot of constraints related to the weather, waves, wind. And there is a lot of wind here, which is what we came for,” says Stéphane Alain-Riou, offshore director of Iberdrola France.
After a call for tenders launched by the State, it was this Spanish energy giant that won the bid a year later to build this park of 62 wind turbines located sixteen kilometers off the coast of Brittany. More than a decade later, marked by numerous protests and legal appeals, the turbines of the park, officially inaugurated this Thursday, have finally started to turn and produce electricity. “The park was commissioned in 2023 and has been running at full capacity since May,” emphasizes Stéphane Alain-Riou, speaking of a “technological feat” to build this park which will have cost the Spanish group the tidy sum of 2.4 billion euros.
Electricity consumption of 835,000 Bretons
Visible from the coast of Brittany in good weather, the 62 wind turbines in the Bay of Saint-Brieuc are the most powerful installed offshore in France, even bigger than those in Saint-Nazaire and Fécamp, the two other offshore wind farms already in service. With a power of 8 megawatts each, they give the Breton wind farm a total capacity of 496 megawatts. A figure that seems a bit abstract on paper but which will clearly change the situation in Brittany, since it represents the annual electricity consumption of 835,000 inhabitants (including heating), or 9% of the region’s total electricity consumption.
Having lagged behind for a long time and being highly dependent, since until recently it only produced 15% of its electricity consumption, Brittany is now preparing to make a leap to reach 25% with the Saint-Brieuc Bay wind farm. “We are helping to open up the region with renewable energy produced and consumed locally,” says Emmanuel Rollin, CEO of Iberdrola France, also considering that “the commitments have been kept” with regard to fishing.
Fishing has resumed in the wind farm area
Fearing for the resource, and therefore their livelihood, Breton fishermen were for a time the most vocal opponents of the project, even taking action in the construction zone in spring 2021. Rejected by the courts, they have since obtained financial compensation from Iberdrola.
Since July, they have been able to fish again in the park among the wind turbines, although they are prohibited from approaching the wind turbines within a radius of 50 meters. “From the start, we wanted offshore uses to resume, so this park shows that cohabitation is possible,” says Marie Thabard, director of offshore development at Iberdrola France.