Following the fourth offshore wind tender launched in January 2021, the French ministry of Energy Transition has chosen Eoliennes en Mer Manche Normandie, the project company owned by the EDF Renewables and the Maple Power consortium, to design, build, operate and decommission the future offshore wind farm named ‘Centre Manche 1’. This new offshore wind project is intended to provide France with a competitive and renewable electricity supply, contributing to the country's carbon neutrality objectives.
The Centre Manche 1 wind farm will be located 32 km off the coast of the departments of Manche and Calvados in the Normandy region of France, and has an expected installed capacity of approximately 1GW.
This is the fifth offshore wind project in France and the third in Normandy developed by EDF Renewables together with Maple Power and its shareholders – Enbridge Inc and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board – as part of the fixed bottom offshore wind tenders launched by the French State since 2011.
EDF Renewables together with Maple Power have already developed and built France's first offshore wind farm off the coast of Saint-Nazaire with a capacity of 480 MW, in operation since late 2022. They are also building Fécamp (500 MW) and Calvados (450 MW) offshore wind farms, and the Provence Grand Large floating offshore pilot project (25 MW). Finally, EDF Renewables and Enbridge are pursuing the development of the Dunkirk offshore wind farm (600 MW).
The Centre Manche 1 project is part of the French government's ambitious objective to commission around 50 offshore wind farms by 2050, amounting to a capacity of 40 GW.
The new wind farm is expected to be commissioned by around 2030.
Image courtesy of EDF Renouvleables
