France to tender 9.2 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind power

France will tender two fixed and three floating wind farms with a total capacity of 9.2 gigawatts (GW) in the coming months, the energy ministry announced in a decision published on Friday.
The projects will be built off the coast of Fécamp in northwestern France, as well as in the waters of Brittany, the western Gulf of Biscay and the southern Mediterranean coast.
The new facilities are part of national plans to have 45 GW of wind power by 2050, said Energy Minister Olga Givernet.
“It is a signal to the industrial value chain of wind turbines, to tell them that now is not the time to relocate, now is not the time to draw up plans for layoffs: it is on this land that we have to build the wind turbines and then install them,” said Givernet. Earlier this year, French newspaper Les Echos reported that General Electric planned to halve the workforce at its wind turbine factory in Saint-Nazaire.