'Blue Oracle' | First French floating wind 'macrozone' data flows from Mediterranean deeps
Metocean intel to be drawn from new-look Ocergy Blue Oracle databuoy moored off Leucate expected to be key to large-scale deepwater developments in southern European plan
Offshore environmental data key to the construction of gigascale floating wind arrays in French Mediterrean is now flowing ashore via a new-look research buoy brought online this week in deepwater off Occitanie.
“This key milestone closes the first year of the project, and the scientific teams are excited to embark in the data acquisition and analysis year-long phase, which is expected to provide valuable biodiversity and environmental information,” said Christian Cermelli, president of Ocergy subsidiary Ocergie SAS.
The ‘Blue Oracle’ acquisition buoy, a one-third scale version of the company’s OCG steel semisubmersible floating wind platform design, was manufactured by Croatian shipyard Brodosplit, assembled at Euroports Marine Renewable Energy terminal in Port-la-Nouvelle, and installed in 95 metres of water by Jifmar using Vryhof anchors and moorings. The unit features Vaisala Windcube lidar.
Cermelli said: “This buoy will also serves as a one-third scale pilot of our OCG-Wind floating offshore wind foundation with important return on experience expected to further mature our floating offshore wind design”.
“This project will [also] validate a tool that is part of the blue economy logic: facilitating the sharing of maritime spaces among the various stakeholders through a sustainable management of natural resources.”
Along with the project partners, the pilot has a scientific committee composed of CRPMEM, Ecocean, Ocean Winds, Semantic-TS, Chorus, and Bureau Veritas that Ocergy credited with “providing important input”.