Developer Eolfi forecasts as much as 16GW of floating wind could be moored and turning off France by 2040 – if the country’s government moves ahead “at the right pace” with commercial-scale tenders for the fast-emerging technology.

Speaking to Recharge on the sidelines of the Global Wind Summit, chairman Alain Delsupexhe, said its calculations, which point to 5GW of floating wind turning in the French Atlantic and Mediterranean “already as early as 2025”, are borne out by national transmission system operator Réseau de Transport d'Électricité’s (RTE) expectations of future capacity allocation along its coastlines.