On the Quai des Charbonniers – where, as the name suggests, boat-loads of coal were once unloaded in the port of Saint-Nazaire – a chapter in the future of energy is being written.
Under a nest of scaffolding, the first of a new breed of floating wind turbine, a concrete-based concept being hatched by French outfit Ideol for the EU’s FloatGen project, has reached the half-way point in its construction, with the development team on track to have the prototype, topped with a 2MW Vestas V80 turbine, producing power from a site in the Atlantic by the end of the year.
