07/06/2023

ABL completes engineering on Saint-Brieuc Offshore Wind Farm

Energy and marine consultancy ABL has successfully completed its owner’s engineering scope to RTE for the grid connection of the Saint-Brieuc offshore wind farm in France.

ABL operations in France, headquartered in Paris, was appointed as owner’s engineer in 2019 to support the installation of two export cables from the Saint-Brieuc offshore wind farm to shoreside Brittany, France. This involved the offshore transportation and installation (T&I) of two 33km long high voltage alternating current (HVAC) cables that were buried by jetting and mechanical cutting.

Saint-Brieuc is the first commercial-scale offshore wind farm off the coast of Brittany, and one of the first commercial scale offshore wind projects for France overall. It has a total installed capacity of 496 MW.

“ABL has been of great support for Saint-Brieuc’s offshore wind farm grid connection project. We have ranked ABL ten out of ten on safety, timely responses, handling deadlines, and competence,” says RTE Project Lead Installation Engineer.

ABL’s scope of work as owner’s engineer included engineering support and coordination between RTE and other project stakeholders, technical support, offshore survey review with geotechnical studies, power cable routing and length design review, other engineering and analyses related to subsea cables, contractor claim support and offshore client representatives resourcing solutions.

ABL is part of the Oslo-listed energy and marine consultancy ABL Group ASA. In supporting the Saint-Brieuc offshore wind project, ABL France also drew on specialised support from other Group companies including FEED engineering specialists Longitude Engineering, geoconsulting firm East Point Geo, and the marine renewable technology specialists at Innosea.

“We are proud to have supported such a pivotal project in France’s growing green energy portfolio. Our multi-disciplined engineering and marine expertise across offshore wind and interconnector projects gives us a unique perspective of the complete risk profile in an offshore grid connection project. This allows us to support our clients in anticipating and controlling risk at every step from early concept through to construction,” says Vincent Frasse-Mathon, head of owner’s engineering at ABL.