Van Oord, a Dutch offshore services provider, has completed the installation of jacket foundations at the 496MW Saint-Brieuc offshore wind farm being developed by Iberdrola.
Located in the Bay of Saint-Brieuc, 16.3km offshore Brittany, northern France, the project is the first large-scale offshore wind farm in the area.
The Saint-Brieuc project is being developed by Ailes Marines, a company owned by Iberdola, which selected Van Oord to transport and install 62 jacket foundations to support the wind turbines.
Each turbine is placed on three-pin piles, while four foundation pin piles have been installed for the offshore substation.
Van Oord used its offshore installation vessel, Aeolus, to install a total of 190 pin piles.
The Dutch services provider stated that the conditions for the wind farm’s construction have been challenging due to the extremely hard and rocky seabed, along with environmental conditions in the English Channel.
To overcome these challenges, Van Oord upgraded the Aeolus vessel with project-specific installation equipment.
The project-specific equipment was developed in partnership with Bauer Spezial Tiefbau. A drilling template was used for positioning and a casing drilling tool was deployed for the precise placement of the pin piles.
For the safe installation of the foundations, the feet of the jacking system were modified with a flex-pin construction and a new drilling method was employed.
Van Oord project director Ivar Daemen stated: “After executing a variety of projects in France, Van Oord reached a huge milestone by completing our very first highly complex offshore wind project here.
“Thanks to the great collaboration between our client Iberdrola, partners and dedicated project team, we have now finished our work on the Saint-Brieuc project. We are proud to have contributed to France’s energy transition.”
The Saint-Brieuc offshore wind farm is being built with a total estimated investment of €2.4bn ($2.53bn).
It will generate 1.82 terawatt-hours of clean energy, enough to meet the power requirements of 835,000 French people.
The project will be powered by 62 Siemens Gamesa SG 8.0-167 DD offshore wind turbines, each with 8MW of power-generating capacity.
Turbine installation has been taking place at the same time as the installation of jacket foundations.
In July 2023, the project generated its first power. After the testing phase, the first electricity was transmitted to Réseau de Transport d'Électricité, the French transmission system operator.
