A unique industrial partnership to make the Dunkirk offshore wind farm a competitive project serving the local area.
Thursday, November 22, 2018 — As part of its application for the competitive dialogue (No. 1/2016) concerning offshore wind turbines off the coast at Dunkirk, DEME, an expert in the design, construction and maintenance of offshore wind farms, preselected by the French Energy Regulatory Commission (CRE) for this project, is announcing the creation of an industrial partnership** with French marine renewable technology specialist Quadran Energies Marines and the global energy company Shell.
Called “Moulins de Flandre”, the aim of this application is to construct – as a partnership with all of the participants across the local area – a competitive and ambitious industrial project to benefit an emerging energy sector.
What’s more, we are convinced that this project is a key opportunity to make Dunkirk into an industrial model of offshore wind energy in France and to create a sustainable economic sector which will be the pride of the local area. “
- Jan Vandenbroeck (Managing Director of French DEME subsidiaries)
- Olivier Guiraud (Managing Director of Quadran Energies Marines)
- Stéphane Cicolella (Energy Transition Director, Shell France)
Moulins de Flandre is drawing on experience from the 50 existing offshore wind farms which have already been constructed throughout Europe
The partners’ strengths lie in their complementary expertise and successes in more than 50 offshore wind farm projects across Europe. The three industrial companies are uniting for a joint application, Moulins de Flandre, to propose a reliable, competitive and effective industrial project, which is notably distinguished by:
- Anchoring in the region for the short, medium and long term: the Moulins de Flandre teams have spent the last few months meeting with members of the industrial networks in Dunkirk and the Hauts de France region, in their offices at the port of Dunkirk. The aim is to bring together all participants in the project to create sustainable relationships. These include research centres, universities, industrial sub-contractor SMEs, sea users (fishermen, recreational boaters, divers, etc.), dock workers, residents’ associations, tourism bodies, etc.
- Control of the whole of the value chain: Moulins de Flandre combines the industrial know-how of DEME (large maritime and offshore wind projects), the expertise of Quadran Energies Marines (renewable energy) and Shell’s experience (various energy applications). This control of the whole of the value chain, which will be present from the very start of the project, constitutes an unprecedented approach to an offshore wind farm project.
“ Our industrial partnership for Moulins de Flandre allows us to co-construct, with the local area, an application based on realistic, concrete and direct commitments.
This means that if the application of Moulins de Flandre is selected, the partnership has made a commitment to establish the maintenance hub of the wind farm in Dunkirk. This is a project that would generate around 150 local jobs for the whole life cycle of the wind farm, i.e. a minimum of 25 years, in addition to what we have already achieved with other offshore wind farms in the North Sea. ”
- Tako Keja (Director of the Moulins de Flandre project)
About Quadran Énergies Marines
Quadran Énergies Marines is an active participant which is embedded within all the moments of a renewable energy project life cycle: from site identification to finance development, construction, operation and maintenance, all the way up to dismantling. Quadran Énergies Marines was created with the ambition of becoming the top French independent producer of offshore renewable energy and to therefore actively participate in the energy futures of different local areas. To do this, they draw on local partners to co-construct integrated projects with them. These are effectively adapted to the requirements and constraints of the areas, with the aim of supporting the creation of regional skill centres.
The company is already at the forefront of offshore wind development in France as the Owner of the EolMed, a floating offshore wind farm off the coast of Gruissan (in the Aude department) and as the company responsible for the operation and maintenance of FloatGen, which is the first offshore wind turbine installed in France, located off the coast of Croisic (in the Loire-Atlantique department).
About Shell
Royal Dutch Shell plc is a registered company in England and Wales, headquartered in The Hague in the Netherlands and listed on the London, Amsterdam and New York stock exchanges. Shell companies are active in more than 80 countries, both upstream and downstream from the energy value chain.
Shell created a “New Energy” division in 2016 and plans to invest an average of 1 to 2 billion dollars in this per year until 2020. This entity is mainly concentrated on two segments: the development of new mobility solutions such as those related to next-generation biofuels and hydrogen, and energy production such as low carbon energy, which includes not only wind and solar but also natural gas.
Shell made its debut with onshore wind technologies in 2001 in the United States and currently has an interest in five onshore wind farms in North America and one offshore wind farm in Europe. In total, our share of the energy capacity in these projects is more than 400 megawatts. Shell also holds a 20% share in the Blauwwind consortium which will construct and operate the Borssele 3&4 wind farms off the coast of the Netherlands. These farms will have a total capacity of 731.5 MW which is equivalent to the power consumption of 825,000 Dutch homes.
The Shell group has been present in France since 1919. Société des Pétroles Shell (“Shell France”), which is a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell and currently based in Colombes, markets oil products and services: motor and aviation fuels and biofuels, lubricants, bitumen, and fuel cards. It has around 90 service stations on motorways and expressways, and one lubricant factory in Nanterre. Shell France has also had a “New Energy” division dedicated to the development of renewable energy projects since 2017.
ABOUT DEME GROUP
The Belgian dredging, environmental and marine engineering group DEME is an international market leader for complex marine engineering works.
Building on more than 140 years of experience and know-how, DEME has organically moved into several related sectors, such as the financing of marine engineering and environmental projects, executing complex EPCI related marine engineering projects including civil engineering works, the development and construction of renewable energy projects, providing services for the oil, gas and energy sector, the decontaminating and recycling of polluted soils and silts, the harvesting of marine resources, etc.
Thanks to an integrated company structure, DEME strongly emerges as a ‘global solutions provider’ which offers its clients overall solutions. DEME has the most modern, high-tech and versatile fleet.
DEME Group has 5,100 employees worldwide and achieved a turnover of 2.37 billion euros in 2017.
