Equinor, RES & Green Giraffe Partners for Floating Offshore Wind in France

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Equinor, RES, and Green Giraffe join forces and form Océole, a partnership dedicated to developing floating offshore wind in France. 

Océole will evaluate and work towards submitting bids in the upcoming floating offshore wind tenders held by the French government.

Establishing this partnership is in line with the three companies’ ambition of delivering high-performance floating offshore wind projects to support France’s targets of up to 6.8 GW offshore wind by 2028 on its path to become carbon neutral by 2050.

Speaking of the partnership, Equinor’s senior vice president for business development in Renewables, Mr. Jens Økland stated, “France has set an ambition of becoming among the top markets for floating offshore wind in the next decade. Together with RES and Green Giraffe, we are ready to contribute long-term to the country’s ambitious offshore wind plans and develop what could potentially be the first commercial floating offshore wind farm in France.” 

As Océole, we have the industrial competence, technical and financial skills to develop projects where we can create value and capture the benefits of scale for this exciting technology,” he added.

Equinor is one of the leading floating offshore wind developers, operating a floating wind farm, Hywind Scotland (30MW), and constructing the largest floating offshore wind farm under development, Hywind Tampon (88 MW). Earlier in May 2021, Equinor had signed a collaboration agreement with Vårgrønn to jointly apply for offshore wind acreage in Norway for the Utsira Nord area.

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While Green Giraffe is a specialist financial advisory firm focused on the renewable energy sector. With more than 110 projects worldwide in the offshore wind sector.

RES has expertise in offshore wind energy and it will build France’s first offshore wind project, which is fully consented to and is currently under construction. “I am delighted for RES to enter a partnership that enhances the complementary nature of all three companies. The experience gathered within Océole demonstrates our ability to develop the floating wind industry in France with projects that are adapted to French territories, while being respectful of the environment and the sea users,” says Mr. Delphine Robineau, Offshore Wind Manager at RES.