Marine and engineering consultancy LOC Group has announced its renewables team is providing comprehensive marine warranty surveying (MWS) services for the very first offshore wind farms in French territorial waters. The work comprises three individual offshore sites: the 498MW Fécamp, 450MW Courseulles-sur-Mer and 480MW Saint-Nazaire wind farms.
Development of the three sites was awarded to a consortium led by EDF Énergies Nouvelles and Enbridge. LOC Group has been working with the consortium to offer early-stage guidance on the design work and ensure the safety and security of the construction process. As part of its MWS offering, LOC has accounted for the varying environmental conditions and water depth at each site. In particular, initial drilling revealed very different soil conditions, with Saint-Nazaire having a hard seabed, Courseulles-sur-Mer a softer one made up mainly of clay and limestone, and Fécamp’s being chalk-based. As a result, the 83 turbines at Fécamp will use gravity-based foundations, while the other two sites will use monopole foundations for the turbines.