Offshore wind turbine plant project in Normandy
Located in the heart of the port of Le Havre, the future Siemens Gamesa factory will cover 80,000 m² of buildings and create 750 direct and indirect jobs on site.
The plant will integrate both the production of the blades and the nacelle assembly containing the components that keep the wind turbine running.
Key information
Project name: Offshore Wind Turbine Plant
Date: Delivery is scheduled for early 2022
Client: Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy
Size: 80,000 m² of buildings
Location: Port of Le Havre
Talk to our experts
Project details
At the origin of the project: the State wanted to accelerate and to better control the development of renewable energies. In 2011, the program was launched. Among the calls for tenders for industrial development on the French territory : the installation on a 36 hectare site in the port of Le Havre of a factory producing these offshore wind installations. This is the project for which Siemens Gamesa is now responsible.
SOCOTEC's expertise as a technical controller was called upon from the early hours of the project, in order to assist Siemens Gamesa in the evaluation of the various technical orientations. The issue of foundations required special attention, the site being partially installed on 15-meter embankments. The site will thus be based on 3,000 piles more than 30 meters deep.
The site will mobilize more than 350 workers on the site. More than a hundred companies have to intervene, which makes the role of the SPS Coordinator particularly strategic. To complete the Prevention system, an HSE representative will patrol the site continuously. He will make sure that the preventive measures are applied.
Our expertise in industrial installations is also heavily used. We control the compliance with French regulations for the machines that will make up the production chain. To avoid any surprise on delivery, we intervene upstream: documentary studies of new machines and control of existing machines on the Danish sites of Siemens. Once there, we will proceed to the reception of the machines. Our teams will also support the teams of the future plant in optimizing all the processes related to electrical installations, lifting or pressure equipment.
The site should be operational at the beginning of the year 2022. Among the first orders: five of the six French offshore projects, including a park of 62 wind turbines of 8MW for the bay of Saint Brieuc and another of 71 wind turbines of 7MW which will be installed offshore Fecamp.
Description of our role
Our Construction and Equipment teams deploy a very wide range of expertise to closely monitor all the technical aspects of the project:
- Technical control of the design and construction of all the buildings and structures of the plant: assembly workshops, unloading docks ...
- Verification of temporary site installations: life bases, etc;
- Safety and Health Protection Coordination of the site, which will certainly be reinforced by a mission of Prevention coordinator, present full time on the site;
- Verification of the compliance and performance for all the machines that will work on the assembly line;
- Optimization of processes related to electrical installations, lifting, or pressurized equipment.
"The construction phase was able to begin in June 2020. Beyond the question of the foundations, we had to issue other site reports to complete our technical control mission. These analyses make it possible to validate the most complex technical points, going beyond the traditional regulatory framework ”
