The French leader in floating offshore wind energy Ideol has just received a €2.5 million grant from the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 – SME Instrument programme. This funding is outstanding since this very selective programme only rewards 5% of the candidate projects.
Last 20 September, the SME Instrument programme awarded Ideol a €2.5 million grant for the Leadfloat project. This project has three main objectives: the mass production of Ideol’s floating foundation with a view to prepare commercial-scale wind farms of 500+ MW; the valorization of the results obtained by operating the Floatgen wind turbine installed off the French coast (studies, equipment) to optimize operation and maintenance costs ; finally, the strengthening of commercial development in the most strategic markets, including the opening of a subsidiary in Japan.
This project follows the very recent commissioning of the Floatgen wind turbine, the first operational unit of the technology patented by Ideol and France’s first offshore wind turbine and allows the 50 employees’ company to further accelerate its development at a time when the various global tenders for large-scale floating commercial farms are under preparation.
