Principle Power (an innovative technology and services provider for offshore wind energy) has been awarded the operations and maintenance support contract for the 30 MW Éoliennes Flottantes du Golfe du Lion floating wind project off the southern coast of France, adding a fourth operating project to its WindFloat portfolio and pushing its total deployed capacity under management to 105 MW.

Contract Scope and Local Operations

The agreement, announced, covers integrated O&M services for the three WindFloat floating foundations that support three Vestas V164-10 MW turbines at the EFGL site.

Those turbines are described as the most powerful currently operating on floating foundations. The contract encompasses inspection, maintenance, and repair services, remote monitoring, data analytics, and engineering support to the project owner.

Day-to-day operations will be based at Port-La Nouvelle in the Occitanie region of southern France. Ocean Winds, which operates the project in partnership with la Banque des Territoires, employs six local workers for maintenance of the platforms and ancillary equipment, including anchor lines and inter-array cables.

Vestas handles turbine inspection and maintenance separately. Principle Power has expanded its local O&M team to support the project, with France now representing nearly 30 percent of the company's global workforce.

Technology at the Centre of the Project

Principle Power will deploy its newly developed Asset Hub application at EFGL to enable remote, real-time monitoring and automated insights. The company said the tool is designed to strengthen operational decision-making for the client.

The three WindFloat foundations at EFGL are positioned more than 16 kilometres off the coast of the towns of Leucate in the Aude department and Le Barcarès in the Pyrénées-Orientales department, placing them well into the open waters of the Gulf of Lion in the Mediterranean Sea.

The EFGL project was assigned by the French State through the ADEME call for floating wind projects as part of the Investments for the Future Programme, known as France 2030.

It involves the operation of three floating wind turbines over a period of 20 years and is expected to cover the annual electricity needs of more than 50,000 inhabitants, equivalent to a city the size of Narbonne in southern France.

A Relationship Built Over 15 Years

The contract deepens a working relationship between Ocean Winds and Principle Power that stretches back more than 15 years. The two organisations previously collaborated on WindFloat Atlantic, a 25 MW floating wind farm that Ocean Winds describes as its first floating wind project. Principle Power accumulated six years of operating experience through that project before the EFGL agreement was reached.

Jeremy de Barbarin, Project Director of EFGL at Ocean Winds, stated that the contract with Principle Power constitutes a strategic asset for EFGL and strengthens the long-standing relationship between the two organisations. He noted that Principle Power's involvement spans the project's design, construction, and commissioning phases, as well as the current operational phase.

Clara de Moura Santos, Vice President of Operations and Maintenance at Principle Power, said the award builds on the company's operating track record in floating wind and reinforces its role as a provider of integrated O&M support and services.

She added that operational experience from the earliest design stages was applied to address day-to-day asset management requirements and support long-term reliability.

Operating Track Record Across the Fleet

Principle Power's floating wind operating history spans three previous projects: the 2 MW WindFloat 1, the 25 MW WindFloat Atlantic, and the 50 MW Kincardine Offshore Wind Farm in the North Sea. With EFGL now added as Ocean Winds' second operating floating wind farm, the company's total deployed capacity using WindFloat foundations reaches 105 MW.

Across those projects, the WindFloat foundations have operated in demanding Atlantic and North Sea conditions, withstanding waves of up to 20 metres and wind speeds of up to 214 kilometres per hour. The combined fleet has delivered more than 1 TWh of energy to the grid.

De Moura Santos noted that experience gained during the design phase of EFGL, drawing on lessons from existing WindFloat projects, informed numerical predictions, maintenance strategies, and operational methodologies for the new site. She added that learnings from EFGL's operation will in turn help inform the development of fourth-generation, fully industrialised WindFloat technologies.

EFGL's Role in France's Floating Wind Pipeline

EFGL brings together Ocean Winds, the offshore wind company created as a joint venture between EDP Renewables and ENGIE, alongside la Banque des Territoires. The project is framed explicitly as a pilot intended to pave the way for larger floating wind developments.

Among those future developments is the Éoliennes Flottantes d'Occitanie project, a 250 MW floating offshore wind project that the French State has awarded to Ocean Winds and Banque des Territoires.

Principle Power identified the EFGL contract as supporting the broader transition of floating wind toward commercial scale not only in France but also in international markets, including the United Kingdom and South Korea.

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