Wind

Shell quits French floating wind pilot as 'costs and constraints' raise viability doubts

Withdrawal of supermajor and partners despite generous support level raise questions over country’s ambitious floating wind plans

Oil supermajor Shell and its partners Banque des Territoires and China Nuclear Power Corp. (CGN) have withdrawn from the Groix and Belle-Ile floating wind pilot in Brittany, France amid doubts about the economic viability of the project.

“The project faced several technical, commercial and financial challenges, all in a context of constantly increasing costs and very strong constraints, in terms of inflation and supply chain,” the companies said in a joint statement.

“The economic conditions linked to the project have been significantly modified, calling into question, for all the partners of the consortium, the economic viability of the project.”

The project is one of four 25-30MW pilots off Brittany and in the French Mediterranean that had been planned to kick off floating wind in France, and are supported by a generous tariff of €240/MWh ($249/MWh).

Shell’s withdrawal raises question marks about the viability of France’s ambitious plans for floating wind as the pilot arrays were only thought of as a stepping stone towards larger projects with lower support levels.

The country last year has launched a tender for a 230-270MW floating wind array, also in the French Atlantic off the islands of Groix and Belle-Ile-en-Mer, and this year for two about 250MW floating wind projects in the Mediterranean.
The set-back at the floating pilot in Brittany came as Siemens Gamesa offshore wind chief executive Marc Becker at the Global Offshore Wind Summit organised by Recharge in Washington this week had warned of possible damage to the industry unless a “new reality” is being accepted for wind at sea of higher costs in the wake of Covid, inflation and the Russian war in Ukraine.

An offshore wind pact between the French government and industry from earlier this year foresees a target of 20GW of allocated offshore wind capacity in 2030 in order to reach a capacity in service of 18GW by 2035, and of 40GW by 2050.

France so far has BW Ideol’s 2MW FloatGen prototype installed off the coast of Brittany, and EDF Renewables this summer has completed the installation of all 80 GE Haliade 6MW turbines at France’s first (bottom-fixed) offshore wind farm, the 480MW Saint Nazaire array.

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Published 18 November 2022, 10:08Updated 11 July 2023, 16:57
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