France has launched a competitive bidding process to develop two 250-megawatt floating offshore wind farms in the Mediterranean. The winner of these bidding procedures will be selected in 2023, and the two wind farms are expected to be commissioned in 2030. The two wind farms are also scheduled to be subsequently supplemented by two nearby expansion projects of 500 MW each.

The first wind farm will be located near Narbonne, more than 22 kilometers from the coast, while the second wind farm should be located about 22 kilometers from Fos-sur-Mer, depending on the results of ongoing environmental studies. If the results of the study rule out this location, a second wind farm would be located in an area about 24 kilometers from Roussillon. In addition, technical and environmental research will continue in the central area of Lions Bay, more than 34 kilometers from the coast.

The tenders were announced by French Prime Minister Jean Castex and Ecological Transition Minister Barbara Pompili during their visit to Newport on Monday, March 14. On this occasion, two calls for intent were also launched to promote the development of port infrastructure to accommodate industrial activities related to floating wind power projects.

In 2021, France launched a tender process for a 250 MW floating wind power project offshore Brittany. The country also has four demonstration floating wind farms under development, three of which are scheduled to come online in the Mediterranean by 2024. As part of the France 2030 plan, France plans to spend a total of 300 million euros to support the development of the floating offshore wind industry. Keywords: engineering construction, engineering news

The tenders are part of a broader plan by the French government to allocate around 2 GW of offshore wind capacity annually from 2025, 20 GW of auctioned capacity by 2030, and 18 GW of operational capacity by 2035 capacity, and 40 GW of operational capacity by 2040. France has also committed to quadrupling the number of direct and indirect jobs associated with offshore wind projects by 2035, allocating more than 40 billion euros in investment over the next 15 years and localizing up to 50 percent of projects. The country currently has 2 megawatts of offshore wind capacity, with around 5.4 gigawatts under construction or a tender process.Editor/XingWentao