Development of tomorrow’s energy: BOURBON completes the mooring installation of the first floating wind turbine in France

Earlier this month, BOURBON completed the mooring installation of the first floating wind turbine in France for Ecole Centrale de Nantes (ECN) as part of the European project FLOATGEN* at the SEM-REV experimental test site, off Le Croisic.

The innovative mooring system using synthetic mooring lines was designed and developed by Ideol team. Significant resources, including an Anchor Handling Tug Supply (AHTS) vessel with a WROV, were required for its installation conditioned by high tensions. The project was successfully delivered to ECN due to the professionalism and great cooperation between the teams.

Responsible for the overall management of the project's implementation, BOURBON performed the engineering, the operations preparation and the execution of the mooring system installation.

'The BOURBON team is extremely proud of this successful operation, which confirms once again our ability to deliver integrated projects, our expertise in offshore engineering services and our adaptability to demanding environments for the entire energy sector,' comments Patrick Belenfant, BOURBON Corporation's Senior Vice President Subsea Services.

'One of the FLOATGEN project challenges was to install an innovative mooring system that needs to meet the production conditions criteria of the floating wind turbine. This demonstrates the value of an experimental site to test innovative technological developments, their implementation and project management when in production. Competent and dedicated teams from BOURBON, Ideol and Centrale Nantes have highly contributed to the success of the operation', adds Christian Berhault, Head of SEM-REV at Centrale Nantes.

* FLOATGEN is a wind turbine with concrete float designed by Ideol and currently under construction at Saint-Nazaire port by Bouygues Travaux Publics. Its installation is scheduled for the end of 2017 on the SEM-REV site.