This wind farm, located 11 km from the island of Yeu and 16 km from the island of Noirmoutier, is the fifth offshore wind farm to be commissioned in France by 2025. It required an investment of more than €2.5 billion and is expected to be operational in the second half of this year.
Sarens is working with DEME Offshore on the load-in, onshore storage and load-out of 61 monopiles with maximum weights of 1200 tons and 62 meters in length, and 61 transition pieces of up to 400 tons and 35 meters high.
The new Îles d'Yeu and Noirmoutier offshore wind farm will be a major step forward in France's efforts to increase its renewable energy generation capacity and thus reduce its dependence on fossil fuels. Located off the Vendée coast, 11km from the island of Yeu and 16km from Noirmoutier, this wind farm will have a generating capacity of 496MW, enough to supply more than 800,000 homes with renewable energy, equivalent to the entire population of the Vendée.
Sarens, world leader in heavy lifting, engineered transport and crane rental services, is working together with DEME Offshore in the port of La Rochelle - Sarens has already worked at this location on similar tasks for the development of the Saint-Nazaire wind farm - on this new infrastructure, taking responsibility for the load-in, onshore storage and load-out of 61 MPs measuring 62 meters long and weighing a maximum of 1200 tons, as well as 61 TPs measuring 35 meters high and weighing up to 440 tons.
To carry out this operation, the Sarens engineering team commissioned Charier, a local groundworks company, to prepare seven pairs of dunes for the storage of the monopiles. In order to handle these pieces, weighing around 1200 tons, Sarens has deployed 45 axle lines of Kamag K24 SPMTs (Self-Propelled Modular Trailers) to the site. The monopiles are arriving at the quayside via marine shipments from China with the Boskalis Blue and Black Marvin vessels, and are stored onshore via 24/7 load-ins over link spans with the SPMTs.
The transition pieces, meanwhile, have been arriving at the port in 16 shipments with the UHL Fresh vessel from Vlissingnen in the Netherlands, to be lifted onto the quayside and picked up for storage using a total of 24 axle lines Cometto SPMTs with a TP Handler. Over 100 units of 500mm elephant feet (stools) have specifically been created for the storage of the transition pieces.
The Sarens TP Handler has proved to be a crucial tool for this work, as the transition pieces to be moved have a higher height to diameter ratio than usual, making logistical tasks more complicated and sensitive. Therefore, the Sarens engineering team, after a thorough preliminary study, must ensure at all times that the maximum speed, the inclination and even the wind during the movements are significantly lower than usual.
According to Abderahim Bouazza, Project Manager at Sarens, “our company has a great deal of experience acquired in similar projects. In fact, we already knew the La Rochelle port facilities very well from our involvement in the Saint-Nazaire wind farm, so it was easier to adapt to it and anticipate our client's needs in terms of machinery, thus reducing downtime to practically zero. We thank DEME Offshore for their confidence in our work, and we look forward to continuing to work with them on strategic projects to help achieve France's environmental goals in terms of greenhouse gas reduction”.
Sarens has extensive international experience in the assembly and maintenance of wind farms. It has participated in various installations in France such as Fécamp, Saint Nazaire, Provence Grand Large and in the lifting and transport work for the foundation bases of the new offshore wind farm in Saint Brieuc, located off the Brittany coast. During this project, Sarens successfully transported loads weighing over 1150 tons. More recently, Sarens has been actively involved in the reception and loading operations of monopiles and transition pieces for 176 turbines for the Coastal Virginia Offshore wind farm in the US and the marshalling and installation of 62 monopiles in the Moray West offshore wind farm, each weighing up to 2000 tons, the largest and heaviest XXL monopiles ever to be handled in the UK.
About Sarens
Sarens is the global leader and reference in crane rental, heavy lift and engineered transportation services. With state-of-the-art equipment, value engineering, one of the world's largest inventories of cranes, transporters and special rigging equipment, Sarens offers creative and intelligent solutions to today's heavy lifting and engineering transport challenges.
With more than 100 entities in 65 countries operating without borders, Sarens is an ideal partner for small to large-scale projects. Sarens currently employs 5000 highly qualified professionals who are ready to serve the needs of any client worldwide and in all market sectors. https://www.sarens.com/