AREVA and STX France have announced a cooperation agreement with a view to optimizing foundations for offshore wind turbines.

AREVA will bring its expertise in design and production of wind turbines and STX France its know-how in specialized offshore foundations, with a view to strengthen competitiveness of offshore wind power in a European market that should see its installed base reach around 40,000 MW by 2020.

Under the terms of the agreement and in line with wishes of power utilities, AREVA and STX France will look to make joint wind turbine/foundation offers on major European projects. STX France would, in addition to designing the foundations, be responsible for complete or partial manufacture of the structures.

Almost one third of investment expenditure in offshore wind farms is generated by the manufacturing, logistics and installation costs associated with the foundations and turbine towers. Their optimization is therefore a major lever for reducing overall project costs.

For a wind farm representing around one hundred units, savings could be of the order of several tens of millions of Euros.

"This cooperation agreement with AREVA, whose technology is proven for the European offshore wind market, will benefit our future customers. By bringing our engineering ability to the table, we will be in a position to offer an extremely efficient and competitive global solution", declared Laurent Castaing, CEO of STX France.

Louis-Francois Durret, CEO of AREVA Renewables, announced for his part: "We are very happy to be collaborating with STX France and benefitting from their expertise. This will help strengthen the competitiveness of the French manufacturing base in the offshore wind French market and for export".