Saint-Brieuc facility is equipped with 62 wind turbines. Credit: Iberdrola, S.A.
Spanish utility company Iberdrola has inaugurated the 496MW Saint-Brieuc offshore wind farm, situated 16km from the coast of Brittany.
Built with a €2.4bn ($2.6bn) investment, the project is now fully operational and can generate 2,000 gigawatt hours (GWh) of clean energy annually.
The Saint-Brieuc facility is among France’s most powerful offshore wind farms, featuring 62 turbines, each with an 8MW capacity.
The project began development in 2012 and was completed in 2024.
Key partners were Siemens-Gamesa, which provided the turbines, the Navantia Windar consortium, responsible for the foundations and transition pieces, Haizea which constructed the towers, Prysmian for cabling, and Van Oord for the installation process.
Siemens-Gamesa, the turbine manufacturer, produced the turbines at its new facility in Le Havre, while the Navantia Windar consortium partly constructed and assembled the jacket foundation components at the Port of Brest.
These developments underscore the project’s contribution to local employment and technological advancement.
The construction phase of the project supported 1,700 jobs, including 500 local positions, and involved the collaboration of 150 European companies.
With the addition of Saint-Brieuc, Iberdrola now operates four offshore wind farms. The others are West of Duddon Sands and East Anglia One in the UK, and Wikinger in Germany.
Iberdrola executive chairman Ignacio Galan stated: “This project lays the foundations for the offshore wind sector in France and clearly demonstrates the potential that this technology has to boost energy security and the reindustrialisation of Europe, while contributing to climate objectives, in line with the Draghi report.”
In September 2024, Iberdrola secured a contract to build the 791MW New England Wind 1 offshore wind farm in the US.
