Ocean Winds, the 50-50 offshore wind joint venture of EDP Renewables and ENGIE, has begun delivering electricity from Eoliennes Flottantes du Golfe du Lion (EFGL), a 30 MW pilot floating offshore wind farm 16 kilometres off the French Mediterranean coast. EFGL is one of the first commercial-scale floating wind installations in Southern Europe.
The project at a glance
EFGL pairs three 10 MW turbines with floating foundations anchored in deep Mediterranean waters that are unsuitable for conventional fixed-bottom monopiles. Once fully ramped, the project is expected to generate roughly 110,000 MWh per year — enough to power around 50,000 French households over its 20-year design life — while serving as a real-world testbed for floating wind components and grid integration.
Why floating matters
Floating offshore wind is critical for countries like France, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Japan and South Korea, where seabeds drop off too sharply close to shore for fixed turbines. Pilots like EFGL are how the industry shakes out anchoring, dynamic cabling and operations-and-maintenance models ahead of gigawatt-scale tenders later this decade.
Context in a busy year for wind
EFGL's start-up lands in a year when offshore wind milestones are clustering across the Atlantic. RWE has installed the first turbine at Denmark's largest offshore wind farm, while in the United States, Vineyard Wind 1 has completed all 62 of its turbines south of Martha's Vineyard. Ørsted and PGE have begun offshore installation of Poland's 1.5 GW Baltica 2 project, signalling that fixed-bottom buildout continues even as floating wind moves from pilots toward commercial scale.
What Ocean Winds wants next
Ocean Winds plans to use EFGL operating data to bid into upcoming French and Mediterranean floating wind tenders, where governments are now pre-allocating gigawatt-scale zones for commercial deployment. The company also operates and develops fixed-bottom wind assets across the United Kingdom, Belgium, Poland, the United States and South Korea, complementing its parents' broader renewables roadmaps.
Reporting based on coverage from OffshoreWind.biz, Ocean Winds and renewables industry trade publications.