LOC wraps up French offshore wind work

Longitude, part of LOC Group, has completed a range of environmental engineering analyses for the Saint-Nazaire offshore wind project to support the planning for the export cable installation operations.

Under the contract with Prysmian, the work included analysis of vessel grounding and mooring in nearshore locations, landfall cable pull-in analysis, export cable free lay from the nearshore to the wind farm, survival analysis for vessel operations in bad weather and seabed evaluation to ensure the cable remains stable prior to being buried.

Prysmian began installing the export cables which will connect the 480 MW offshore wind farm to the French grid in mid-august.

Longitude said its work in metocean engineering provided an understanding of tide, current and waves at the shore approach location, including generating 3D hydrodynamic modeling.

According to the company, this was critical to Prysmian’s ability to plan operations, given strong and changing tidal currents, due to the location being close to a river estuary.

Saint-Nazaire, also known as Parc du Banc de Guérande, will comprise 80 GE Haliade 150-6 MW turbines scheduled to be operational in the summer of 2022.

Prysmian is in charge of the design, supply, installation, testing, and commissioning of two high-voltage export power cable links, as well as delivering and installing the inter-array cables in consortium with Louis Dreyfus TravOcean.