France issues offshore wind farm tender winners

The French government has published the winners of the the first round of tenders for offshore wind farm development zones in French waters.



The consortium led by EDF and Alstom won three out of the four tenders it bided for a total of 1,430 MW and Iberdrola in partnership Areva won the 500 MW project in Saint-Brieuc. The fifth project at Le Tréport, where GDF Suez was the only bidder, was abandoned as the purchase price was the highest among all the projects.





Source: French Energy Minister



All the bids exceeded the indicative tariffs specified in the tender, which were capped at €175/MWh and €200/MWh, depending on the location. The government estimates that the financing of Feed-in Tariffs for these projects will add around €1.1bn a year to electricity bills.



France launched the tender in July-2011 under plans to meet 23 percent of energy demand from renewable sources by 2020.



The winners now have 18 months to complete detailed feasibility studies analysing the technical and environmental aspects of the projects before entering the permitting process. Even if everything goes smoothly, it is unlikely anything will be commissioned before 2017.



The second round will be launched in the latter half of 2012 and not in April as originally planned.