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.
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.
Whether reimagining the tripod shape to move proudly towards the traditional shape of the closed island, stepping back from the street , using curves to provide a maximum of natural light or working with materials to create pleasant, social spaces, the research and design work done here at Be Issy by the architects from PCA Stream is intended to improve the lives of the occupants.
(Français) Face à l’augmentation du nombre de seniors dans nos sociétés et à l’évolution de leur style de vie, il est nécessaire de repenser notre vision de l’habitat pour concevoir des logements qui répondent à leurs nouvelles attentes.
The summer recess is over and the start of a new parliamentary term has begun in earnest with a great deal of enthusiasm in terms of the country’s environmental transition. So let’s take stock of the issues in one of the key pieces of legislation, the Mobility Act (LOM).
For some people, living in the countryside is synonymous with isolation and loneliness. The hamlet of Les Noés in Val-de-Reuil (Eure) proves the contrary: this environmentally friendly eco-neighbourhood promotes the individual and collective well-being of its residents on a daily basis.
In France, the construction sector generates more than 40 million tonnes of waste every year and consumes large quantities of resources to meet the needs of renovation and new construction. A situation that contributes to threatening certain resources with scarcity, or even shortage, in the medium to long term. For example, this is the case with sand, of which the sector is a large consumer.
In February 2005, France adopted a law making it mandatory for cities to create a living environment adapted to people with disabilities by making urban areas accessible to all within 10 years. However, the additional time granted and the leniency shown due to difficulties cities faced in meeting the established deadlines have greatly brought down the initial goal.
Equis Energy, Asia‐Pacific’s largest renewable energy Independent Power Producer, has selected Bouygues Energies & Services and Toho Electrical (Toho) to build a 13.7 MW solar project in Noheji, in the north of Japan. A first step for the Group in the country!
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. Find out about the proposals of our think tank, guided by the French sociologist Serge Guérin, to contribute to ageing well in […]
