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Wednesday May 17th, 2017
The Floatgen project, the largest offshore wind turbine in France on which construction is soon due to be completed in the port of Saint-Nazaire, has won the Usine Nouvelle 2017 Renewable Energies Trophy for Energy Transition at the ceremony organised on Tuesday 16 May in the presence of Jean Jouzel, climatologist and former vice-president of GIEC.
The third edition of the Energy Transition Trophies has honoured the Floatgen offshore floating prototype wind turbine equipped with a floating foundation structure designed by the French specialist group Ideol and built by Bouygues Travaux Publics, in the port of Saint-Nazaire, which should be installed off the coast of Croisic on the SEM-REV test site operated by Centrale Nantes.
More than 80 % of the floating foundation’s concrete shell has already been constructed. The entire anchoring system has been built and shall be installed at the offshore SEM-REV site in June, before the prototype is brought into service by the end of 2017.
Floating wind turbines represent the future of offshore wind turbine production. These types of turbine enable the development of projects without any depth constraints and therefore far offshore, and without any visual impact, in the sites with the greatest wind speeds. Floatgen illustrates the reality of the emergence of this type of project.
Offshore wind turbines represent a very high-growth sector. Over 3,600 wind turbines are currently operational in the world, representing cumulative investments of EUR 65 billion since 2010.
This new industry has emerged worldwide, except in France, where there are currently no offshore wind turbines. The first of these will be Floatgen, a floating wind turbine.
Although France is lagging in terms of the traditional offshore wind turbines fixed on the seabed, it nonetheless enjoys a number of unique advantages as the international leader in the new floating wind turbine industry.
The solution developed and patented by Ideol (called Damping Pool®), which is perceived as being the most competitive in the market, marks a technological breakthrough in the offshore wind turbine market and opens up a wide range of potential projects to be developed globally. This technology has been selected by the French government to equip the first Mediterranean offshore windfarm project (Eolmed managed by the energy group Quadran) and has won export contracts in Japan, the UK and Ireland.
Every day, concrete endures attacks of all kinds (carbon dioxide from the air, chlorides, etc.). These aggressive substances corrode the concrete's metal reinforcements and cause deterioration. Unavoidable? Yes. Disastrous? No – not if you know exactly when to do renovation work.
Tucked into the heart of the Lille metropolitan area, an extraordinary neighbourhood is taking shape. It’s a neighbourhood focused on its future inhabitants while honouring its past. Let’s explore this project built by Bouygues Bâtiment Nord Est, a company of Bouygues Construction.
Is it possible to create professional paint with a small carbon footprint and low emissivity? It is, with the start-up, CIRCOULEUR. It is an innovation from Matching Up that has been tested on our sites!
Floatgen ©Ideol[/caption] Porté par un consortium européen de sept industriels et organismes de recherche, Floatgen fait figure de première à plusieurs titres. Première éolienne en mer qui entrera en service en France mi-2017, elle est également le premier démonstrateur grandeur nature de la fondation flottante développée et brevetée par Ideol. « Ce projet est un […]
With the growing number of seniors in our societies and the changes in their lifestyle, it is necessary to rethink our vision of housing to conceive homes that better meet their new expectations.
This area will be a great place to work, take it easy and unwind. The location, known as ‘Quai 22’, with its mix of city life, water and nature, will be situated on the banks of the river Deûle in the European Metropolis of Lille.
UN experts have issued a chilling verdict: in cities and in the countryside, biodiversity is at death's door. The good news, as with climate change, is that it is not too late. Although natural areas remain the priority, urban planners and developers in the broad sense must learn to build, to rebuild cities and buildings that will let ecosystems flourish, where ecological continuity really comes into its own.
And what if IKEA were set to sell us not flat-packed furniture but pre-packed Smart City kits? This is just what the Swedish giant seems to be working on, if its latest announcement is anything to go by. Named SolarVille, the project designed by Space10, its in-house innovation lab, can power a community with solar energy by way of a smart microgrid using blockchain technology.
The aim of the Ademe’s Obec (‘Objectifs Bâtiments Energie Carbone’) programme is to support the trialling of positive energy & carbon reduction buildings (E+C-). It has just presented its initial findings and it is fair to say that they are surprising. Here is why.
