Cable works at Fécamp offshore wind farm in full swing

Italy-headquartered Prysmian Group has installed thirty inter-array cables at the Fécamp offshore wind farm in France.

The cabling contracts for the 500 MW offshore wind farm were awarded to Prysmian, which is in charge of supplying and installing both the inter-array cables and the export cables for the wind farm.

To carry out this operation, four ships are currently mobilised in the area of the future offshore wind farm: the 2009-built Ariadne, the 83.7-metre long ESVAGT Froude, the DP3 trenching support vessel (TSV) Athena, and the offshore construction vessel Argo with nearly 300 people on board.

The inter-array cable installation will continue until the summer of 2023, according to the developer.

In November last year, Prysmian was also awarded a contract by Réseau de Transport d’Électricité (RTE) to provide inspection, maintenance, and repair services for the export cables connecting Saint-Nazaire, Fécamp, and Calvados offshore wind farms to land.

The Fécamp offshore wind farm will feature 71 Siemens Gamesa SWT-7.0-154 wind turbines, all of which will stand on gravity-based foundations.

From the first half of 2023, all of the wind turbines will be installed on the foundations, then gradually commissioned.

Once the entire wind farm is in service at the end of 2023, it should produce the equivalent of the annual electricity consumption of 770,000 people, or the equivalent of 60 per cent of the electricity consumption of Seine-Maritime.

The project is being jointly developed by Eolien Maritime France (EMF), a joint venture between the French company EDF Renouvelables; EIH S.à.rl, owned by Enbridge Inc. and CPP Investments; and Skyborn Renewables (formerly wpd offshore).