The Diplomat
Iberdrola has signed a memorandum of understanding with investment firm AXA IM Alts, which will become a minority shareholder in the development of a 1,000 megawatt (MW) offshore wind farm in Normandy (France), if the energy company is awarded the project in the auction in which it has already been shortlisted, the company said.
Specifically, the presentation of bids for this tender, called ‘AO4’, will take place on 10 November and the award is scheduled for the first quarter of next year.
The future site will be located more than 30 kilometres off the coast of Normandy, in an area with very favourable wind and seabed conditions for this technology.
The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals. AXA IM Alts has 184 billion euros of assets under management and has a key presence in France.
In addition to this tender, the energy company chaired by Ignacio Sánchez Galán has also been prequalified for the development of three other offshore wind energy projects, each of 250 MW.
Two of them in the Gulf of León, in the waters of the Mediterranean Sea, which are expected to be awarded in autumn 2023 and are scheduled to be commissioned in 2030.
The third project for which the company is bidding is France’s first floating offshore wind farm, to be built some 20 kilometres off Pointe des Poulains, a peninsula located on the northwest tip of Belle-Île, in Brittany. The French government plans to designate the winner of the tender next spring, so that it can start operating in 2030.
Iberdrola is currently completing the Saint-Brieuc wind farm, which will be the group’s first major offshore wind farm in France. With almost 500 MW of capacity, it will generate enough clean energy to meet the electricity consumption of 835,000 people, once it comes on stream in 2023.
Located some 16 kilometres off the coast, it will cover an area of 75 square kilometres. Its construction involves an overall investment of around 2,500 million euros. Iberdrola plans to invest around 4 billion euros by 2025 in the French market, mainly in renewable projects.
The project involves the creation of more than 2,700 jobs, half of them in Galicia and Asturias thanks to Iberdrola’s award of the largest offshore wind contract to date won by Navantia-Windar.
The plant will become the company’s fourth offshore wind farm in operation, after West of Duddon Sands, located in the Irish Sea; Wikinger, in the Baltic Sea; and East Anglia One, one of the largest offshore wind developments in the world, located in the southern North Sea.
