Wind power |
installation completed for first floating wind project in Occitanie, France
Ocean Winds (OW), a joint venture of EDP Renewables and ENGIE, has successfully completed the third and final turbine installation for its Éoliennes Flottantes du Golfe du Lion (EFGL) project.
Developed in partnership with Banque des Territoires, EFGL is the first floating offshore wind farm in the Occitanie region to complete its offshore turbine installation phase, “a major step for floating wind globally,” says OW. With three 10 MW turbines installed on floating foundations, EFGL “demonstrates the viability of floating offshore wind in deeper waters, unlocking
high-wind areas previously out of reach.” Assembled at Port-La Nouvelle and towed 16 km offshore, the turbines now stand ready for the final stage: cable and grid connection works to be done by RTE. The Occitanie milestone follows on from five years of operation of OW’s 25 MW WindFloat Atlantic project in Portugal. The successful installation at EFGL now paves the way for larger developments, says OW, including the Eoliennes Flottantes d’Occitanie (EFLO), a 250 MW floating offshore wind project awarded to OW and Banque des Territoires in late 2024.
Offshore turbine
Success for Envision two- blade turbine
Envision Energy has announced what it describes as a “significant breakthrough in wind power innovation”, reporting that its ‘next-generation’ two-blade onshore smart turbine prototype has achieved over 500 days of stable operation, with a ‘remarkable’ availability rate of 99.3%, MTBT (mean time between trips) of 2 444 hours, and equivalent full-load hours per year reaching 3 048. Field performance is said to confirm that “the two-blade turbine is on a par with traditional three- blade machines operating at the same site.” The two-blade turbine is built on Envision’s Model X onshore platform, the company says, featuring a modular design and high-speed DFIG (doubly-fed induction generator) technology with enhanced stability.
“By overcoming key technical challenges such as excessive system vibration and load imbalance – barriers that have long held back two-blade designs,” Envision has become “the first in the industry to demonstrate long-term operational verification of a next-generation two-blade turbine,” said Lou Yimin, Senior Vice President and Chief Product Officer at Envision Energy.
Taking drone use to new heights
Ørsted and its UK-based drone operator Skylift has been using FlyingBasket cargo drones to transport boxes of critical safety evacuation equipment, weighing up to 70 kg, to wind turbines at Hornsea 1 & 2 and Walney 1 & 2.
Each box is taken from a ship by the drone and delivered to the nacelle at the top of each wind turbine, at a height of more than 100 metres.
Photo: Richard McCrilley/Orsted
The programme is said to be “pushing the boundaries of drone use in the offshore wind industry” in a number of ways: it is the largest drone delivery programme ever attempted to offshore wind sites, with over 550 flights to more than 400 turbines; it is also the first time that drones have been used for such an extensive delivery programme so far from land, going to turbines up to 75 miles to sea. Nina F. Le who is heading the project for Ørsted’s team said: “Normally, to deliver heavy loads like this, it would require two crane- lifting operations to get the box to the top of the turbine. It would also take 3 people and mean shutting the turbine down for up to 6 hours, so we could only deliver one box a day. Delivery by drone takes no technicians from their scheduled work, we can leave the turbines running which means no lost power generation and each takes around 5 minutes which has meant we’ve been able to achieve up to 30 deliveries a day.”
40 | September 2025|
www.modernpowersystems.com
Envision’s involvement with two-blade turbine technology began more than a decade ago, the Chinese company says. In 2012, its Global Innovation Center (GIC) in Denmark successfully developed the “Game Changer” – a 3.6 MW offshore two-blade turbine – becoming one of the first to “pioneer this unconventional design in the heartland of the wind industry.” Since the prototype was installed in 2013, Envision says it has “accumulated significant product development and operational know-how, laying the foundation for its new-generation two-blade turbines.” Envision says the two-blade machine underwent months of rigorous testing and nearly two years of real-world field operation at its smart wind power verification centre, backed by a multi-level, full- process, all-condition validation system. Notably, using what the company describes as “one of the industry’s first multi-degree-of-freedom full-system loading test rigs”, Envision says “all parameters were systematically planned, tested, and validated to ensure technological maturity and readiness for commercial deployment.”
Envision says its ‘new-generation’ two-blade turbine offers a “fresh alternative to conventional three-blade models, particularly in scenarios where cost efficiency, transportability, and modular deployment are paramount.”
Photo: OW
Photo: Envision
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