Thursday 6 April 2023

Ocean Winds, Sumitomo Corporation, Banque des Territoires and Vendée Energie, the shareholders of Eoliennes en Mer des Iles d'Yeu et de Noirmoutier (EMYN) today announce the final investment decision for the Iles d'Yeu project and Noirmoutier, the fifth offshore wind farm which will be commissioned in France, off the Vendée coast, from 2025.

The project involves the construction and installation of a wind farm located 11 km off the island of Yeu and 16 km from the island of Noirmoutier. These wind turbines will supply nearly 800,000 people with electricity each year, the equivalent of the population of Vendée. The Iles d'Yeu and Noirmoutier wind farm represents an investment of approximately 2.5 billion euros. The signature of all the financing agreements materialized on April 5, 2023.

Nine years of development

Winner in 2014 of the call for tenders launched by the State in 2013, the project has been developing since then, through continuous dialogue with local elected officials, fishermen and sea users, socio-economic actors and the general public. Detailed engineering studies, environmental studies and the creation of a Scientific Interest Group have also been carried out which will monitor and support the environmental impacts of the park, from its construction to its operation. The administrative authorizations were obtained in 2018 and the appeals were lifted before the French courts at the start of the year.

Start of the construction phase

The final investment decision enables the construction phase of the project to be launched. The latter will see a succession of first operations at sea this summer before an effective start of installation operations in 2024. From the spring of 2024, work will begin to install the monopile foundations, the electrical substation built by Chantiers de l Atlantique in Saint-Nazaire, and the laying of the first inter-wind turbine cables by Louis-Dreyfus TravOcean. The companies DEME and Jan de Nul will be responsible for transporting and installing the foundations and the wind turbines. At the same time, RTE, responsible for connecting the park, will install a double submarine link to route the electricity produced at sea to the land network. The wind turbines, produced by Siemens Gamesa in its factory in Le Havre, will be installed during 2025. The commissioning of the park is scheduled for the second half of 2025. The construction site of the EMYN park, which will last 2.5 years, will mobilize 1,600 direct jobs in France. It participates in the development of the French industrial sector of offshore wind power.